HBO's Andre The Giant is up front with the pros and cons of the larger-than-life wrestler

The A.V. Club

The Jason Hehrir-directed, Bill Simmons-produced documentary on André René Roussimoff is powerful, says Noel Murray. "Hehir’s doc is mostly about how Roussimoff became famous in the first place, and the physical and mental toll it took on him before his heart gave out in 1993, at age 46," he says. "This is not a somber film, by any means, or a cautionary tale. It’s primarily a celebration of a one-of-a-kind talent, intended to put him back into his proper context. Specifically, Andre The Giant is about wrestling, and how one man helped pave the way for the sport’s 1980s boom."

ALSO:

• The film doesn't really offer much insight into the wrestler outside the ring
• Andre the Giant is tremendously entertaining, but not that much is revealed
• It's hard to craft a compelling narrative when everybody likes him so much
• Andre the Giant director Hehrir was so skeptical he had one rule: "We were only going to include first-person accounts"