Plucky fighter movie

Rating: 7/10 (16 August 2019)

Stallone writes and leads in this against all odds boxing drama. Rocky is stubborn, dumb and quite likeable. We get a decent foothold on the character, fighting in run down halls for a few dollars, working for a loan shark but with too much heart for his own good and down on his luck living in a beat up apartment. He's are largely popular figure in his community and desperate to date his friends sister Adrian.
All this is very convincing. The streets look authentic, as do the buildings and the circumstances. There's a lovely innocence to his burgeoning relationship with Adrian and a credibility to the bums that inhabit his world.
Giving a nobody a shot at the title is a bit of a stretch but a scene in Apollo Creeds office largely takes care of that. Later it sets an early bar for what became a ubiquitous montage and sucks you into really rooting for this underdog. The fight scenes are pretty darn good and again sets an early bar. The pacing is good as is the pathos.
However, the characters are fairly one dimensional like walking plot devices and when a character gets heated, they tend to over egg the performance.
At 2 hours it can feel at little sluggish early on but it kinds needs it to labour the mundanity of everyones lives. However, when it hits its stride it really rather zips along and the music is nothing short of inspiring. I really rather like the ending too barely acknowledging the result. SEVEN