A funny thing happened recently at the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF). Partway through I Play Rocky, director John G. Avildsen (Jay Duplass) tells Sylvester Stallone (Anthony Ippolito) to up his game. Stallone, never one for dramatic gravitas, struggles to convey the mojo of a character he knows deep in his bones. Avildsen encourages Stallone to dig deeper within himself to forge an emotional bond with the character. When that moment happens, Avildsen advises, Stallone will know it.
Much later in the film, they’re shooting a scene with Burgess Meredith (Robert Morgan) that nobody on set finds to be working. Avildsen gets Stallone to do another take. This time, the actor ad-libs a monologue to express Rocky’s pain that goes unsaid in the script. It’s an explosive feat of acting.
Avildsen happily asks his star if he knows what that was. Stallone, spent for words, says nothing. And yet punctuating the otherwise at the WIFF screening, a woman seated a few rows back confidently said aloud to herself, “That was it.” Reader, even in the darkened theatre, one could practically see her smiling and nodding.
Simply put: You’ve gotta see I Play Rocky with an audience. This is one of those movies that energizes a crowd with infectious enthusiasm. It shakes every iota of cynicism from one’s body. Even a Network fan will be cheering by the end.
Written by Peter Gamble (Office Uprising) and directed by Peter Farrelly (Green Book), I Play Rocky is crowd-pleasing Hollywood entertainment at its finest. It’s an underdog take on the ultimate underdog movie as the film dramatizes Stallone’s dedication to getting Rocky made. One probably gets far more out of the film with a screening of Rocky under one’s belt, but one also doesn’t need to have seen the 1976 Oscar winner to enjoy this upbeat tale of a scrappy movie shoot.
Coming to the film with some Rocky know-how, though, lets one appreciate the absolutely superb casting to play Hollywood’s finest. Ippolito gives an awesome performance as Stallone that transcends mimicry. He gets the voice just right as Stallone’s signature drawl marks the antithesis of the articulate elocution of typical Hollywood leading men. But more importantly, he captures the heart.
Moreover, Ippolito understands the working class cadence to Stallone’s delivery that arguably marks a change in Hollywood history. I Play Rocky taps into this intuition as Rocky represented a new era of Hollywood that anticipated independent filmmaking and authentic storytelling. Stallone fights to ensure that he plays Rocky when producers Irwin Winkler (P.J. Byrne) and Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell) love the script but want a name for the lead. United Artists exec Sandy Maddox (a composite character played with delicious gusto by Tracy Letts) agrees and can’t be swayed. They keep offering higher figures, but Stallone won’t move on his negotiating point. “I play Rocky,” he insists while during down life-changing paydays. One could make quite the drinking game with the titular line.
The film mines Stallone’s inspiration for the Rocky screenplay and character with admirable insight. Gamble draws smart parallels between Stallone’s biography and Rocky’s story. I Play Rocky follows the rhythm of a good old-fashioned sports drama as Stallone spars with the studio, trains for the part, and gets ready for his big fight. There’s fun insider nods to the magic of filmmaking, but also the dedication entailed in making a movie for only a million bucks on an extremely tight schedule that the studio stacks against you. The underdog spirit soars as Stallone strides up the steps of Philadelphia’s Museum of Art as the film captures the making of that iconic shot, and I Play Rocky reminds us why some movies capture the public imagination so intensely. The film hits the sweet spot between Hollywood cheese and cinematic nostalgia just right.
I Play Rocky tackles a Hollywood classic surprisingly well, too. There’s a high bar, yet Farrelly crafts a solid picture that honours the original Rocky while giving something fresh, new, and energizing. He delivers a winner especially through the ensemble. Ippolito’s dynamite performance seems destined to launch a career in the same way that Rocky catapulted Stallone to stardom. But there’s no role too small in this ensemble. From AnnaSophia Robb’s heartfelt turn as Stallone’s first wife, Sasha, or Stephan James’ memorably energetic turn as actor Carl Weathers, everyone rises to the challenge. Meanwhile, Kiki Seto offers such a dead ringer for Talia Shire that one often forgets that one watches a recreation in any of her scenes with Ippolito. They capture every beat of the chemistry between Stallone and Shire that makes the original Rocky so endearing.
However, Stallone’s bullmastiff Butkus may be best in show among the cast. Played by Leni as a puppy and Big Riggs later, Butkus is the secret weapon for the film’s underdog punch. (No pun intended.) Stallone sells the beloved pooch for 40 bucks while struggling to pay his bills and eventually buys his best friend back once he sells the script. That nugget of Hollywood lore offers an inspiring reminder to anyone in the crowd: no matter how down-and-out you might feel, the Rockys of the world always come back swinging, so long as they don’t forget where they came from. It’s no wonder that this film, like the beloved original, strikes a chord wherever it screens.
