I Play Rocky

Shot on the fly for a scruffy $1 million, Rocky’s ascent to Oscar glory is the stuff of Hollywood legend. Just in time for its 50th anniversary, this biopic from dramatises Sylvester Stallone’s rags-to-riches rise by drawing parallels with the boxing underdog he created.   


On paper, a quirky pitch. On screen, the cinematic equivalent of the meeting that should have been an email. Peter Farrelly’s broad, mawkish, overlong movie really should have been a documentary. 


We first meet Sly (Anthony Ippolito) failing an audition for Thug #2 as ‘Mike’ Stallone. Soon, he’s sleeping rough and starring in softcore porn for a quick buck. A job at a fleapit cinema leads to a date with ticket seller Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb), who gives him the follow-your-dreams speech. Can’t get cast? Write your own screenplay and make yourself the lead. 


Eight unsold scripts and 16 months later, the couple are struggling in LA when Sly watches Chuck Wepner’s dogged journeyman surviving 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. Eureka. Producers love the script, but the unknown Stallone refuses to sell unless, you guessed it, I Play Rocky.


Farrelly’s mawkish, overlong movie really should have been a documentary

For a movie that flies or dies on its casting, Ippolito is knockout: he has Stallone’s mushy drawl and clumsy ox walk down pat, but his performance is sabotaged by one-note caricatures (Matt Dillon imagines Stallone’s callous dad as a Sopranos cartoon, Tracy Letts’ studio boss is utterly manic). Farrelly sees Sly’s story as exaggerated farce, so when he’s speed-writing Rocky’s script over three days, we see him cooling his knuckles in a bowl of ice. Accept the tongue-in-cheek mythologising and it’s good fun… until it isn’t.


A braver drama would have cut away when Sly finally gets the deal, because what follows is an entire hour of goofy behind-the-scenes reconstructions that play like lifeless dioramas. In reality, Weathers smashed his nose and Stallone cracked his ribs shooting the climactic brawl, but bafflingly, we don’t even glimpse the fight. Instead, we get trivial adversity: Stallone strains a tendon, bruises a knuckle punching frozen meat and catches the flu, with no lasting impact on the shoot. There’s no depth, feeling or tension, because Stallone is written with a halo: demon-free, flawless, with no inner-life.  


The biggest irony is that John Avildsen’s bleak, gritty original took genuine stylistic risks (Garrett Brown’s pioneering Steadicam was a gamble, as was Avildsen’s mercenary one-take direction). Farrelly’s film takes no risks whatsoever, framed flatly, overly reliant on sentimental musical cues, and colour graded in that yellow tint favoured by streamers that’s crept into cinema like jaundice.  


Sly’s story ends charging up the steps of Philadelphia’s art museum but, boy, does it stumble on the way there. If I Play Rocky results in You Rewatch Rocky, mission accomplished. One is timeless. The other a hokey tribute act.



In cinemas worldwide November 6.