Where's your hat? Timeless classic with immortal themes

Rating: 9/10 (14 June 2008)

The music starts and the scrawling black and white lettering moves across the screen. The fanfare is a triumphalist sound that will clearly lead into an epic story. So to go from that to a dingy fight club in Philly is a strange twist. The boxing on display in the ring is far from pedigree as two ten-a-penny brawlers slug it out in the ring, one clearly moving away from anything resembling a prime. The fans don't like it and jeer, and as the fighter leading decides to crank it up a notch he backs the loser on the ropes and head butts him. The violent assault sparks him into action and he drives his opponent back and wins by a knockout. The money earned is minuscule and there is little reward for the effort and pain endured.
Thus begins the story of Rocky, a man who truly is a bum from the neighbourhood. As the film goes on we learn more about him, he is a collector for a loan shark, a hired goon paid to break people's fingers if they don't cough up what they owe. This should make us dislike him more, but it doesn't, because like the very people he is collecting from he is on the bottom rung of society's ladder. A man for whom breaks of anything but the physical type are exceedingly rare.
Cut to a man at the top rung, a man for whom things don't go wrong and for whom setbacks are a major inconvenience for his perfect world. Apollo Creed, heavyweight champion of the world, being informed that his snow white underdog cannot fight due to a broken hand, with no other fighters willing to go head to head with him he seeks a novelty, and plumps for the idea of fighting a nobody, a club fighter, a ham and egger for the million to one shot prize of the heavyweight title on offer, and in spite of protestations from his trainer he picks Rocky Balboa.
And so we have what is probably the greatest fictional underdog story of all time (True-life underdog film is "Seabiscuit"). In spite of the sequels that came after this is a low budget, Indy style movie and when you watch it, should be judged as such. The performances from Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Talia Shire, Burt Young and the irrepressible Carl Weathers are flawless, just check out Stallone's face when being informed he is "A tomata!" and his realisation, in the key scene of the movie while he stands alone in the ring, of the enormity of his situation the night before the fight. This is acting where anymore would be too much and any less would too little. Stallone nails the scene.
The script is a brilliant study of the underbelly of society and how it reacts to such incredible moments of life and the direction is excellent by John G. Avildsen, but the second star of the film, other than the actors, is the unbelievably brilliant score by Bill Conti, whose trumpets, strings and vocal arrangements are unforgettable after the first time you've heard it.
There are good and bad sequels to this film, some of which have been documented within my own reviews, but this is the first, it's raw power is not diminished and the ending is still one that I never tire of seeing, even to this day.
Nuff said
Em.