The Resurrection of Jake the Snake Review

Left to Right: Diamond Dallas Page, Scott Hall, and Jake 'The Snake' Roberts

    The Resurrection of Jake the Snake (2015) is a documentary directed by Steve Yu which chronicles the last attempt by pro wrestlers Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts and Scott Hall to break free from their alcohol and drug addictions with help from their friend and former student Diamond Dallas Page.

    You don’t have to be a pro wrestling fan to get into this documentary.  The Resurrection of Jake Roberts is a movie that is about the trials and tribulations of addiction, childhood trauma, and most importantly the power of friendship.  At the beginning of the documentary, retired Diamond Dallas Page, who has started a successful yoga program called DDP Yoga, visits his friend Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts who has spent the last thirty years in and out of rehab for his addictions.  Page believes that his yoga program can help Roberts kick his addictions once and for all.  This is Page’s way of repaying Roberts for mentoring him when he first decided to become a pro wrestler.  Page debuted at the advanced age of thirty-five years old.  Prior to that he had only been a manager.  Jake Roberts was one of the few wrestlers that believed in Page.  Roberts took Page under his wing and Page would later become one of the most successful and recognizable pro wrestlers in the world during the late nineties wrestling boom.  However, when Page arrives at Roberts’ house, he quickly sees what dire straits his friend is in.  If anyone has seen the documentary Beyond the Mat (1999), they’ll know how bad Jake Roberts’ addictions were.  The sex and drugs lifestyle of pro wrestling caught up with Roberts, leaving him broke, destitute, and completely alone.  Fast forward over fifteen years later and not much has changed in Jake Roberts’ world.  His glory days of the nineteen eighties, when he was one of the most popular wrestlers in the world, have long since passed.  Roberts still lives in poverty, has become obese, and is still hooked on drugs.  Even Roberts’ own family seem to have given up on him and given his state, it’s hard not to blame them.  Realizing that his friend’s condition is even worse than he thought, Page decides to move Roberts in with him.

    After Roberts moves in, Page subsequently get him on a diet, a workout regimen using his yoga program, and crowdfunds a knee surgery that Roberts desperately needs.  Page does this not because he can’t afford it, but to show that people still care and believe in Jake ‘The Snake Roberts.

    There are bumps in the road, however.  Roberts falls off the wagon several times throughout the course of the documentary.  One scene in the documentary show Page and his staff attempting to locate Roberts after he mysteriously disappears as drug addicts are prone to do.  They find him in the most unexpected place.  If there’s one thing this documentary shows, it’s how much of addiction is fueled by shame.  Roberts shame over the abuse and neglect at the hands of his father and sexual abuse by his stepmother are something he never truly reconciled with.  Another factor in Jake Roberts’ shame is the constant nagging realization that he failed to be there for his children.  He was not present in their lives.  He was on the road wrestling and partying.  Knowing that he’s lost time he can never get back is another factor in Roberts’ addiction.

    As Roberts slowly but surely begins to recover, Page decides to take in another one of his former friends.  Like Jake Roberts, Scott Hall was another wrestler that fell from grace.  Hall and Page were both wrestlers for the defunct promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW) during the company’s heyday in the late nineties.  Hall finds himself in the same boat as Roberts.  Past trauma in his life has left him addicted to pain pills and alcohol.  This too, is his last chance to get clean.  Like Roberts, Hall struggles to stay sober under Page’s roof.  Slowly but surely, he is able to rebuild his life.

    Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts and Scott Hall were up until a few years ago expected to die a typical wrestler’s death of a drug induced heart attack. Fans were expecting for years that whenever they would check a wrestling news website or social media that the inevitable story of their deaths would be announced.  It would have been sad, but not unexpected.  Dozens of wrestlers over the last thirty years have died prematurely from drug related causes.  Jake Roberts and Scott Hall would have been no different.  However, these two men have been able to defy the odds and not only get sober, but claim their rightful place as respected elder statesmen in the world of pro wrestling.  While both men put in the hard work necessary to get sober, one cannot state enough how important Diamond Dallas Page was to their recovery.  Page did not have to do what he hid.  He did it because he was tired of seeing his friends suffer and was simply doing the right thing.

    Rating: ****