This review is based on a screening timed to the Toronto International Film Festival. I Play Rocky will be released in limited theaters on November 6 and expand nationwide on November 20.
Sometimes you can absolutely feel a movie trying oh-so-hard to evoke a reaction out of you and yet still find yourself giving in to that reaction thanks to how skillfully it’s done, and that’s very much the case with I Play Rocky.
This movie’s reason for existence and its intent feels pretty shameless, starting with Amazon MGM wanting to make more use of their Rocky franchise in a somewhat outside-the-box manner (while they wait for Michael B. Jordan to return for another Creed installment) by putting out their own origin story movie for the original 1976 film. Then there’s the fact that the very unsubtle approach is to hammer home that Sylvester Stallone was writing something deeply personal with Rocky and that hey — if you think about it — Stallone getting the movie made, with him in the starring role no less, was like a real life Rocky story!
Like I said, it’s shameless… But damn it, it sure is effective.
Anthony Ippolito plays Stallone, who we meet in the early 1970s as he’s trying and mostly failing to make it as an actor, frequently being told that he doesn’t have movie star looks, and that his slurred speaking voice especially will stop him from ever being a leading man. His new girlfriend Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb) is the one who suggests that he begin writing screenplays himself, which eventually leads him to write Rocky after he gets a meeting with successful producers Irwin Winkler (P.J. Byrne) and Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell), who are encouraged by his previous work.
The first half of I Play Rocky is incredibly engaging as we track the early days of Stallone and Sasha’s relationship, their financial struggles, and his quest to make it as an actor; Stallone hopes his screenplays will help open the door to that future. Ippolito is terrific as Stallone, overcoming the considerable obstacle of playing such a famous and distinct celebrity who has loomed large in pop culture for so long. Yes, he has a strong resemblance to Stallone, and yes, he manages to sound incredibly similar to Stallone; fortunately, this doesn’t feel like just skillful mimicry, but rather a fully formed onscreen character in its own right. Thanks to Ippolito’s grounded performance, you believe in his Sly Stallone’s intelligence, drive, and determination, and you believe in his deep investment in himself, even when it seems like he might be foolishly stubborn.
Robb makes for an excellent onscreen partner for him, bringing a ton of likability and feistiness to Sasha, and completely selling you on both their bond and her own belief in her eventual husband’s talent and potential. Robb gives a wonderfully emotive performance, including an especially well-played scene where she meets Sly’s dad, Frank Sr. (Matt Dillon), for the first time, and we watch as she listens to what’s being said by both men. Robb expertly shows us Sasha painfully realizing just what kind of a verbally and sometimes physically abusive household the man she loves was raised in.
The center of the film focuses heavily on the excitement Winkler and Chartoff have for the Rocky script and the willingness of studio head Sandy Maddox (Tracy Letts as a composite character based on multiple execs) to make it, only to hit a massive impasse thanks to Stallone’s outright refusal to sell the script unless he also gets to star in the movie. There’s some great material here, with Byrne conveying Winkler’s enthusiasm mixed with frustration, and Letts conveying Sandy’s pessimism mixed with intense frustration. The movie gets a lot of comic mileage out of funny moments where these Hollywood veterans are baffled by encountering someone as unwavering as Stallone, who keeps turning down increasingly huge offers.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/i-play-rocky-review
