Producers: Toby Emmerich, Christian Baha, Peter Farrelly, Paul Currie and Michele Weiss Director: Peter Farrelly Screenplay: Peter Gamble Cast: Anthony Ippolito, AnnaSophia Robb, Toby Kebbell, P.J. Byrne, Jay Duplass, Matt Dillon, Stephan James, Tracy Letts, Kiki Seto, Erik Palladino, Steve Sweeney, Michael Fuchs, Trevor St, John and Robert Morgan Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios
Grade: B-
What’s become arguably the ultimate underdog movie—John G. Avildsen’s 1976 “Rocky” (although most would rather attribute it to its writer-star Sylvester Stallone)—now gives rise to what can be thought of as a second-generation underdog movie about its gestation. “I Play Rocky” is effectively a partial biography of Stallone and his struggle for recognition as an actor, an ambition that led him to write the “Rocky” screenplay and fight tooth and nail, like its hero, to play the title role himself. Like “Rocky,” it’s really not a terribly good movie, but it too is a crowd-pleaser that will leave fans of the original cheering–only an echo of its predecessor, perhaps, but one that will resonate anew for those devoted to it.
Finessing the record for dramatic reasons, Peter Gamble’s script introduces Stallone (Anthony Ippolito, a pitch-perfect double vocally and visually, but also bringing convincing levels to the character) as a twenty-eight-year-old calling himself Mike instead of Sylvester and trying to get by as an actor in NYC in 1974. Unable to find work or pay his flophouse rent, he’s reduced to living on the streets, where he bonds with a stray puppy—appropriately, a bulldog—he names Butkus. Taking a part in a porno movie to raise some cash, he finds work as an usher in a movie theatre, where he gently romances ticket-seller Sasha Czack (AnnaSophia Robb, gratifyingly spunky), and they marry.
Sasha stiffens Stallone’s resolve to follow his dream even though his father Frank (Matt Dillon, surly and almost unrecognizable)), a barber who once harbored acting ambitions himself, is dismissive; she encourages him to go by Sylvester, and to write scripts with roles for himself in them. They move to Los Angeles, where Sasha helps support him while he works as a valet parking attendant at a hotel. It’s serendipity when a friendly customer suggests he see producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler (Toby Kebbell and P.J. Bryne, the two doing a great vaudeville-style routine as a supportive team in a cutthroat business) about a role in a project.
It doesn’t work out, but Stallone takes the opportunity to slip one of his scripts into a pile on their receptionist’s desk; they don’t buy “Paradise Alley” (which bombed when Stallone made it in 1978), but when he later shows up with “Rocky,” which, inspired by the Mohammed Ali-Chuck Wepner title fight of 1975, he wrote in just a few days, they go crazy for it. They even persuade Sandy Maddox (a composite United Artists executive wonderfully played by Tracy Letts as a bulldozing cynic) to finance it.
There’s only one problem: Stallone insists on playing Rocky himself, and the ever-increasing purchase offers for the screenplay won’t deter him. When Sasha learns how much money he’s turning down, she’s angry not over his doing so, but keeping it a secret from her. And he persists even when they have a kid and Stallone goes so far as to sell his beloved Butkus for some ready cash. (Dog lovers need not worry; he’ll later take a loss to buy the mutt back.)
After much haggling Chartoff and Winkler ultimately convince Maddox, playing on his regret for having lost “The Godfather” to Paramount, to back “Rocky” as a low-budget effort with Stallone in the lead. But the deal comes with severe financial restrictions that require the shoot to stay on time; if it doesn’t Stallone could be replaced—a point that arises quickly when he repeatedly suffers injuries as a result of the part’s demands and the attenuated schedule. It also means they’ll move the location to Philadelphia and employ an ad-hoc crew, which inevitably will cause problems with the powerful unions.
But Stallone’s commitment, even in the face of crisis after crisis, never wavers, and the hiring of Avildsen (played with cheeky aplomb by Jay Duplass, who savors a throwaway line like about their not be able to afford Spielberg), proves inspired. Not only does he speed filming by doing single takes, but embraces the revolutionary Steadicam invented by Garrett Brown (Michael Fuchs) that allows for continuous tracking shots. He also challenges Stallone at a particularly dramatic moment to up his game and deliver an impassioned improvised monologue that provides an emotional climax.
The shooting scenes naturally introduce other main members of the “Rocky” cast—Talia Shire (Kiki Seto), Burgess Meredith (Robert Morgan), Burt Young (Scot Teller—though his appearance is a blink-and-you’ll miss-it affair). The cream of the bunch, though, is undoubtedly Stephan James’s hilarious turn as Carl Weathers, a preeningly over-confident guy whose introduction to the ring by Stallone’s boxing coach (Erik Palladino) proves the actor will say anything to get a part. Mention might also be made of Steve Sweeney, whose scene as the bartender serving Stallone as he watches the Ali-Wepner fight helps to sell the moment, and Trevor St. John, who has a nifty cameo as a famous boxing choreographer.
Naturally the production finishes on time despite all the obstacles, and at the premiere Stallone can’t stand to remain in the audience, going out in the lobby to fret—per Hollywood convention—over the reaction. It turns out, of course, to be raucously favorable, much to the mingled amazement and delight of Maddox and his underlings. “Rocky,” of course, goes on, as captions tell us, to be a huge hit and surprise Oscar winner.
Except for the performances—Ippolito provides the centerpiece the story demands, and everyone else seems to be having a wonderful time—“I Play Rocky” is hardly a classic. Peter Farrelly’s direction is at best workmanlike and often positively clunky, serving up the clichés of Gamble’s smoothed-out, go-for-the-obvious script (the father-son relationship, for instance, is much less volatile than the one described in Stallone’s recent memoir, and the first strains of Bill Conti’s famous theme becomes grist for a joke) without much fizz. The visuals are grittily low-key (Anthony Gasparro was production designer and Any Roth costumer, with Sean Porter serving as cinematographer), while Sam Seig’s editing is merely adequate and Dave Palmers score will never rival Conti’s in memorability.
But one can argue that the very ordinariness is suitable, given that “Rocky” was pretty ordinary in those departments itself. And it’s certainly a pleasant change to see folks in the moviemaking business like Chartoff, Winkler and Avildsen portrayed not as selfish monsters but as rather generous contributors to a project. (Maddox, of course, is the necessary contrast, a bellowing buffoon.)
And if the movie is unlikely to become as beloved as “Rocky” is for many, it will prove a sufficiently engaging behind-the-camera biography to send audiences home happy to have swallowed its fairy-tale rags-to-riches narrative.