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31st Aug 2022

A charming wrestling comedy – yes, they exist – is among the movies on TV tonight

Dave Hanratty

Fighting With My Family

M O V I E S. O N. T V.

Hello. It’s Wednesday. The last day of August is upon us.

What do the movie gods want from us, though? Read on…

Ghostbusters II – ITV4 – 8pm

The second one. Not great, but boy did that ‘painting comes to life’ bit freak me out as a child.

Lethal Weapon 3 – Turner Classic Movies – 9pm

The third one.

Black ’47 – Film4 – 9pm

Gritty drama set against the backdrop of the Irish famine.

Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens – TG4 – 9.30pm

Well-received, highly personal documentary about the Nobel Prize-winning poet.

Fighting With My Family – RTÉ One – 9.35pm

If the Liverpool/Newcastle game has fizzled out by this point, you could do much worse than switching over to the national broadcaster for this charming, wrestling-themed comedy-drama.

Florence Pugh, just a little bit prior to global superstardom, stars as the real-life Saraya Knight; a young wrestler from a working class UK family of grapplers – also including Nick Frost, Lena Headey and Jack Lowden.

She and her brother dream of one day making it to the WWE and it just so happens a fateful tryout comes to the UK, but when only one of the siblings is selected, some very real tensions follow along.

Directed by Stephen Merchant and produced by The Rock – both of whom also feature onscreen – Fighting With My Family ought to be taken the same pinch of salt that you’d apply to pro-wrestling itself, but it’s a slight, sweet and winning adventure.

Phil Lynott: Songs for While I’m Away – RTÉ 2 – 9.35pm

One channel over at the exact same time, you can enjoy a recent, critically acclaimed documentary on the life and times of the genuine legend that was Thin Lizzy icon Phil Lynott.

The Vault – Legend – 10.55pm

Heist-themed horror with the always-terrible James Franco.

Galaxy Quest – Film4 – 11.05pm

Excellent, good-natured sci-fi comedy in which a group of washed-up actors from a Star Trek-esque TV show find themselves caught in the middle of an actual intergalactic crisis. Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and the late, great Alan Rickman lead the charge.

Unsane – Channel 4 – 2.50am

Decent horror movie ON AT THREE IN THE MORNING for some reason.

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