STARRING: Anthony Ippolito, AnnaSophia Robb, Toby Kebbell, P.J. Byrne, Jay Duplass, Matt Dillon, Stephen James and Tracy Letts. Written by Peter Gamble. Directed by Peter Farrelly. Running time 128 minutes.
The true rags to riches rise and rise and rise of Sylvester Stallone and the making of Rocky, the film that literally catapulted him into the stratosphere of celebrity and how he came to write it, act in it, and write the theme tune too. And it's all true. Actually it is. Well, apart from that last bit of course.
We join Mike Stallone (Anthony Ippolito - an extraordinary performance) on his uppers sleeping rough on the bitterly cold streets of New York as he attends audition after audition before taking a part in a soft porn skin flick. Then it's off to Hollywood with girlfriend, soon to be wife Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb) and his massive Mastiff, Budkiss in tow to park cars and keep searching for that lucky break. In comes after Sasha convinces Mike to change his name to Sylvester and write a script for himself, which he does after watching a boxing match. It takes him three days to write according to the legend and when he shows it to producers Irwin Winkler (P.J. Bryne) and Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell) and finds himself at the centre of a bidding war between himself and Sandy Maddox (Tracy Letts) the head of United Artists. Sly turns down the initial offer of £20,000 telling 'them' that "He (I) play Rocky." Sandy refuses and so begins to bribe Sly with offers that finally reach £300,000 which would have made him the most successful script writer of all times if he'd accepted. Naturally he doesn't and he wins the gig and so begins the filming of Rocky. Shot guerrilla-style in the streets of Philadelphia using a steadi-cam the production battles valiantly overcoming numerous obstacles before it opens and goes on to be nominated for 10 Oscars winning two for screenplay and Best Picture and the rest is history.
I'd only recently finished listening to Sylvester Stallone's autobiography narrated by the great man himself so watching this not that long after somewhat enhanced the experience enabling me to fill the blanks and to add more texture to the mix. Obviously for a bio-pic there is much that has been amalgamated, including characters to fit into a two-hour story structure, elements and events that Stallone was able to mumble over an hour or so are here dispensed with in a matter of minutes. It's a fascinating story, the making of Rocky and film is very successful when charting its story, the rest of it though is a tad middling. It's only thanks to the utterly extraordinary performance of Anthony Ippolito as Stallone that this film is something far more wonderful than a generic Hollywood biopic, in fact so good is he that you actually accept him 100% as Stallone. He is electric and his performance which is never an impersonation is truly mesmerising, he simply is Stallone. I wish they would hire him to remake some of his other films for a modern audience.
I loved all the film making aspects of this film, but got a little bored by the domestic aspects, it would seem that there were no hardships or true drama outside and that Rocky, Stallone, just sort of strolled into success, which just isn't the case. Often thought of as a figure of fun, listening to the great man speak you realise how driven, how focused and how determined he was to succeed. He is quite the inspiration and proves that age old adage of 'it's not what you know, it's who you know.' and 'Make sure you're in the right place at the right time.' to be absolutely 100% true.
As to this, an entertaining if slightly white-washed bio-pic more in the vein of The Glenn Miller Story than say, 8-Mile.
I'd only recently finished listening to Sylvester Stallone's autobiography narrated by the great man himself so watching this not that long after somewhat enhanced the experience enabling me to fill the blanks and to add more texture to the mix. Obviously for a bio-pic there is much that has been amalgamated, including characters to fit into a two-hour story structure, elements and events that Stallone was able to mumble over an hour or so are here dispensed with in a matter of minutes. It's a fascinating story, the making of Rocky and film is very successful when charting its story, the rest of it though is a tad middling. It's only thanks to the utterly extraordinary performance of Anthony Ippolito as Stallone that this film is something far more wonderful than a generic Hollywood biopic, in fact so good is he that you actually accept him 100% as Stallone. He is electric and his performance which is never an impersonation is truly mesmerising, he simply is Stallone. I wish they would hire him to remake some of his other films for a modern audience.
I loved all the film making aspects of this film, but got a little bored by the domestic aspects, it would seem that there were no hardships or true drama outside and that Rocky, Stallone, just sort of strolled into success, which just isn't the case. Often thought of as a figure of fun, listening to the great man speak you realise how driven, how focused and how determined he was to succeed. He is quite the inspiration and proves that age old adage of 'it's not what you know, it's who you know.' and 'Make sure you're in the right place at the right time.' to be absolutely 100% true.
As to this, an entertaining if slightly white-washed bio-pic more in the vein of The Glenn Miller Story than say, 8-Mile.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments, unless they're how to make money working from home, are gratefully received.