Best Sports Film Ever

Rating: 9/10 (14 April 2004)

The 1970s was a great decade for movies, maybe the best ever. People note two kinds of movies were getting made at an unprecedented success rate; big popcorn action thrillers like "Jaws" and "Star Wars," and individual cinematic statements of artistic purpose, like "Mean Streets," "Nashville," and Godfathers I and II.
Then there's "Rocky," a film that combines the best of both. It's an unrepentant crowd pleaser, with visceral boxing scenes and the tale of an underdog's rise to glory. But it's also a very personal, lived-in little movie, written and starring a struggling actor named Sylvester Stallone no one heard much of before (and refused more than $300,000 to give his role to an established star) and shot in an uncompromising and gritty way.
"Rocky" today is a prisoner of its success. The first things about it most people remember are that it spawned a lot of weaker sequels (though Rockys II and III are still good films) along with Sylvester Stallone's career, which has had its share of misfires ('Cobra,' 'Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot,' 'Rhinestone'). They forget just how good the film is, how truthfully observed and comically well-pitched it is on the grim reality of life, mainly that most of us will die never realizing our deepest ambitions and desires.
"Rocky" doesn't wallow in despair, though there is a sadness about the film, especially early on when we watch Rocky Balboa shake down losers for money and stop on the way home at the pet store window to wave at the sad little puppies who press their noses against the cold glass. Or the opening sequence, which is composed like a Depression-era painting, of Rocky and another boxer named Spider beating each other's brains out for a winner's share of $40.55. Spider's idea of post-fight conditioning is guzzling a beer, but when you're going nowhere in life, why bother? It's the kind of situation Paddy Chayefsky would breathe life into, and it's sort of ironic that 'Rocky' beat his "Network" for the Best Picture Oscar in 1977.
But "Rocky" has humor and humanity that compensates for the misery, even before a cracked third metacarpal robs Apollo Creed of his opponent for the New Year's fight and forces the champ to improvise fast. Like the scene where Rocky asks his friend Paulie (Burt Young) why Paulie's sister Adrian (Talia Shire) won't give him the time of day:
Paulie: Forget her! You're better than her...Adrian ain't sharp. Adrian's a freaking loser...She's gonna die alone.
Rocky: Hey, I don't see no crowd around you neither.
Rocky's courtship of Adrian is at first funny, then endearing, and finally intense. Their wordless makeout session at Rocky's doorway is all the better because it doesn't look pretty. Adrian is such an ugly duckling through the first half of the picture, you like Rocky all the more, loser that he is, for sticking with her through her painful shyness. (Her transformation into a more conventional beauty in the later Rockys is a key weakness of them.)
The second half of the film is the better half, though, because of the build-up to the fight, then the fight itself. Nothing is played the way film convention dictates. Rocky walks into the fight promoter's office thinking he's being offered a job as a sparring partner. When the promoter tells Rocky he's offering a shot at the title, Rocky is so incredulous he turns it down. Stallone underplays and underwrites this scene masterfully. His best line in the movie is probably a single word, when the promoter asks him if he believes America is the land of opportunity: "Yeah." And he half-swallows the word. But it's hard for this lifetime loser to believe his luck has changed, even if it means exposing himself to the world's most legally dangerous human.
There are some weaknesses, but very minor ones, like when we see Rocky tell Adrian he can't fool around with her before Mickey tells a protesting Rocky to lay off the kissyface. Most of what I see on repeat viewings are classic scenes that just get better, like Mickey's visit to Rocky's apartment and Paulie and Adrian's big yelling match after Paulie accuses Rocky of "busting" his sister. Meanwhile, the smaller moments get bigger also. I like the late Joe Spinell's performance as Rocky's loansharking boss Gazzo very much, as he invests the character with real charm and likability. He's patronizing, menacing, and you want better for Rocky, but if he is a villain, he's one in Rocky's corner.
'Rocky' also introduced us to the steadi-cam and some dynamite orchestral rock theme music that topped the charts in 1977. Mainly, though, it gave us one of the great film performances by Stallone, an actor who could play hungry because he was hungry, but could bring depth and warmth to bear as well, and a film that tells us the only real losers are those who give up on their dreams.