By Jason Osiason
I Play Rocky takes a story everybody knows and somehow makes it exciting all over again. A broke actor writes a script Hollywood desperately wants, but refuses to sell unless he gets to star in it. The money could change his life, everyone thinks he’s out of his mind, and he won’t budge. What surprised me was how much I cared about Stallone before we even got to that decision. Peter Farrelly spends nearly half the movie showing us the life that made him so stubborn in the first place, and it’s easily the best part.
The first half is such a richly detailed portrait of Stallone’s life. His relationship with Sasha Czack, played beautifully by AnnaSophia Robb, the constant financial struggles, and Matt Dillon as a father whose approval he’s spent his entire life chasing. I loved how much time we spend with him when absolutely nothing is going right. There’s something almost ridiculous about a guy with so little refusing the one offer that could fix everything, but that’s what makes the story work. He believes in himself more than anyone else possibly could.
The second half doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and I do think the movie loses some of that early intimacy once it becomes about getting Rocky made. The producers, the negotiations, the production headaches, the eventual triumph. We’ve seen this kind of Hollywood story plenty of times, and Farrelly doesn’t have many surprises up his sleeve. But it’s so confident, funny and infectiously hopeful that I found it pretty hard to resist. What I liked most is that Hollywood is perfectly happy to acknowledge Stallone’s talent as a writer while refusing to believe he could actually play the character he created. They want everything about him except him. There’s something especially satisfying about watching him refuse to accept that distinction.
Anthony Ippolito gives a deceptively knockout performance. I came in expecting an impression, the voice, the lip, all those familiar Stallone mannerisms, and he gives us all that sensitivity and intelligence underneath. He’s so convincing that you almost forget how much of Stallone’s image has been reduced to a punchline over the years. And there we were, underestimating Stallone all over again. Ippolito is terrific.
Tracy Letts is also hilarious as Sandy Maddox, the studio executive who can’t quite believe anyone is taking this guy seriously. He and the Paramount jokes got more laughs out of me than most comedies I’ve seen this year. I wish the latter half had been as interesting as the first, but there’s so much affection for Stallone and what he accomplished that even the familiar stuff works. I knew exactly where this was heading, and it still got me.
[B]
