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Rocky Balboa
Dec. 28th, 2006 03:53 pmSpeaking of good sequels, Rocky Balboa is the movie that the one people claim to exist despite the fact that they never made a fifth movie until now in my world should've been. I think Stallone's got a legitimate shot at an Oscar for this one, because I don't think he's ever going to turn in a performance this good again, and also because the Academy might be feeling some residual guilt over not giving him one for any of the good movies he made (which were few, truth, but still) - it worked for Paul Newman and Sean Connery, after all, so we may just see it happen again.
Appropriately enough, it'd be a case of him going toe-to-toe with a formidable black opponent if it did happen - very probably two, since Wil Smith's got an obvious Oscar bid going on with Pursuit of Happyness (not a slam on that movie, just that when a studio releases that kind of good, heavy drama in December, they're making a bid for the little bald gold guy; and Forrest Whitaker did such a good job on Last King of Scotland that they could release it early in the year and still count on him being in the running.
But I digress.
Rocky Balboa is one hell of a movie. Adrian has died, Rocky junior's so embittered at never being able to be anything other than Rocky Balboa's boy that he barely speaks to his father anymore, and despite the fact that Rock has a successful restaurant (named in his wife's honor) and is still a beloved figure around Philadelphia, he's being eaten alive by his past: Every year on the anniversay of Adrian's death, he and Paulie visit her grave, then spend the rest of the day driving from place to place that was important to him back when he was a legbreaker palooka who was stupid enough to hope for something more. He's lost his wife, and he's losing his son, and he's collapsing in on himself. When one of the cable sports networks runs a computer simulation of what a fight between himself in his prime and the current heavyweight champion (Mason "The Line" Dixon, who's such a thinly-veiled allegory for Mike Tyson that Tyson himself shows up at one point to trash talk him on his way into the ring), Rocky finds a thin rope by which he might pull himself out of teh swamps of his own despair: Go back into the ring and fight again. Nothing big, mind: He knows that he's old and past his prime, just local matches.
Dixon's managers, however, have other plans. Their fighter is getting no respect, because his victories look easy. They figure that if they can arrange an exhibition match to capitalise on the heat the computer match generated, and if Mason takes it easy on Balboa before putting him down, it'll repair his professional reputation - and stop the declining sales on the pay-per-view broadcasts of his fights.
When they talk Rocky around, though, he decides to take the fight seriously. As he tells his son, "But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." He's fighting for more than just an exhibition victory - he's fighting for his self-respect, and in the hopes that the punches he lands (and takes) will be enough to kill his own inner demons.
Rocky Balboa is a story about grief, redemption, and letting go of the things that you put in the way of your own success. Like its title character, it's deeper than one might think at first glance, and deserving of a lot more glances than just that first one.
I try to be practical in my reviews of movies, so rather than stars, I rate them with how much a person ought to pay to see it. It goes from "Don't even bother," to "Catch it on cable", to "See it at the dollar theatre", to "Afternoon matinee", to "Worth full price". Rocky Balboa definitely falls within the final category.
Appropriately enough, it'd be a case of him going toe-to-toe with a formidable black opponent if it did happen - very probably two, since Wil Smith's got an obvious Oscar bid going on with Pursuit of Happyness (not a slam on that movie, just that when a studio releases that kind of good, heavy drama in December, they're making a bid for the little bald gold guy; and Forrest Whitaker did such a good job on Last King of Scotland that they could release it early in the year and still count on him being in the running.
But I digress.
Rocky Balboa is one hell of a movie. Adrian has died, Rocky junior's so embittered at never being able to be anything other than Rocky Balboa's boy that he barely speaks to his father anymore, and despite the fact that Rock has a successful restaurant (named in his wife's honor) and is still a beloved figure around Philadelphia, he's being eaten alive by his past: Every year on the anniversay of Adrian's death, he and Paulie visit her grave, then spend the rest of the day driving from place to place that was important to him back when he was a legbreaker palooka who was stupid enough to hope for something more. He's lost his wife, and he's losing his son, and he's collapsing in on himself. When one of the cable sports networks runs a computer simulation of what a fight between himself in his prime and the current heavyweight champion (Mason "The Line" Dixon, who's such a thinly-veiled allegory for Mike Tyson that Tyson himself shows up at one point to trash talk him on his way into the ring), Rocky finds a thin rope by which he might pull himself out of teh swamps of his own despair: Go back into the ring and fight again. Nothing big, mind: He knows that he's old and past his prime, just local matches.
Dixon's managers, however, have other plans. Their fighter is getting no respect, because his victories look easy. They figure that if they can arrange an exhibition match to capitalise on the heat the computer match generated, and if Mason takes it easy on Balboa before putting him down, it'll repair his professional reputation - and stop the declining sales on the pay-per-view broadcasts of his fights.
When they talk Rocky around, though, he decides to take the fight seriously. As he tells his son, "But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." He's fighting for more than just an exhibition victory - he's fighting for his self-respect, and in the hopes that the punches he lands (and takes) will be enough to kill his own inner demons.
Rocky Balboa is a story about grief, redemption, and letting go of the things that you put in the way of your own success. Like its title character, it's deeper than one might think at first glance, and deserving of a lot more glances than just that first one.
I try to be practical in my reviews of movies, so rather than stars, I rate them with how much a person ought to pay to see it. It goes from "Don't even bother," to "Catch it on cable", to "See it at the dollar theatre", to "Afternoon matinee", to "Worth full price". Rocky Balboa definitely falls within the final category.
