A Great Movie

Rating: Null/10 (30 November 2000)

What makes this movie so great is that it captured our fears and hopes all at the same time. In a way by watching this movie we were in our own way fighting against our Russian adversaries. As far as the historical accuracy goes we must remember that this is just a movie. As with all the ROCKY movies the boxing matches go on far longer than they would in real life. In this movie we saw the Soviet Training system as a finely regimented and scientific endeavour. According to Soviet sports training books I have read the kinds of training depicted in the movie may very well be accurate. There are only two things that may be a stretch. The first is the use of sparring partners by Drago. The movie depicts Drago pummelling every one of his partners sending them to the canvas spitting up blood. This of course doesn't happen in real life-sparring partners are partners not punching bags. The second thing about Drago's training that is questionable is his use of steroids in the movie. Contrary to popular belief this was not a wide spread practice and in fact it was condemed by the government. Any athlete who was caught doing steriods or any coach who distributed them were eliminated from the sports program. Soviet scientists and trainers knew that the use of steroids only provided a quick boost in strength, and that continued use of them would cause extensive injuries to the athlete. In short the athlete would be injured so much that he would have been able to train harder and acheive maximum performance without the drugs. In the movie's defence though, the scene is relevant in the context that we all thought the Soviets were taking superior drugs thus adding to our fear of them.
This movie definitely displayed our thoughts and emotions dealing with the Cold War right up to the very end. Our sentiments were captured exactly when after the fight Rocky said, "Tonight you had two people killing each other...but I guess that's better than 20 million". "If I can change and if you can change...everyone can change"... We changed.