610. ROCKY (1976)

Running Time: 120 minutes
Directed By: John G. Avildsen
Written By: Sylvester Stallone
Main Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith

WHO DOESN'T LOVE AN UNDERDOG STORY?

Well for the time being I'm tapped out on Hitchcock films and don't expect another one in the mail from Netflix until Wednesday, so expect some real randomness until then. Tonight I decided to head to the DVD shelf once more and grab "Rocky", a movie I've seen a few times and one that always struck a chord with me.

Much like "Rear Window", anybody who's reading this surely knows the story of "Rocky", but I'll retell that story because that's the way I run shop. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script and stars as Rocky "The Italian Stallion" Balboa, a debt collector for a loan shark by day, and semi-pro boxer by night. The film opens with Rocky fighting Spider Rico in a small, rundown, little shanty of a place, with smoke filling the air and a heckling audience. Rocky wins the match and walks off with the winner's purse - $40. From there we get a taste of day to day life for the unintelligent, brute Balboa, as he makes his rounds for his boss Tony Gazzo, chasing down crooks who don't pay back what they borrowed, making twice a day rounds to the pet store where Adrian (Shire), his love interest, works and basically bumming around the town in his leather jacket and fedora. In the meantime, heavyweight champion Apollo Creed doesn't have an opponent for the big bicentennial fight that is set to go down on New Year's Day. When all of the major contenders to the title decline the offer to be ready to fight on just five weeks notice, Apollo makes the decision to give one underdog the opportunity of a lifetime and let an unknown challenge for the heavyweight gold. I'm sure you can put two and two together and realize that the chosen contender is Rocky Balboa and it'll be the fight of his life.

I guess I've just always been a sucker for an underdog tale. I love watching a story about a man who has nothing, who scrapes to get by, who works hard and who fights when fighting needs to be done. I love watching that same guy finally get that grand opportunity to have all of his hard work payoff. "Rocky" is exactly that. The character of Rocky goes from fighting in smokey bars to standing in the middle of a roaring crowd and challenging the heavyweight champion and it's a movie you can really get behind. Now I know this movie has a lot of harsh critics and I think a lot of it has to do with Rocky's upset Best Picture win over "Taxi Driver", which I am in complete agreement that it was certainly not a better picture than. But when you take away the awards that it won, "Rocky" really is a good movie and serves its purpose. It's not meant to be a artsy picture, it's not meant to have some deep, hidden meaning...it's just a regular movie about a regular guy...plain and simple and it does a great job of being that.

Certainly the acting wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't bad either. You may put down Stallone, but he served his purpose too and fit the fighter stereotype to a T. Burgess Meredith was great as the cranky old grizzled trainer. Talia Shire did a good job a the shy store clerk, who despite her resistance to Rocky, can't resist his brutish charm. Burt Young played the drunkard Paulie very well too and in my opinion, everyone was given a pretty simple job to do and they did it. I don't know, maybe I'm trying to hard to defend the movie, instead of just saying that it is a great movie and stating why I think that. It has a few flaws, but really none to important to speak of and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a simple, inspiring story and I think that story flowed along quite nicely. There wasn't really anything that dragged or slowed down the pace of the movie and every scene seemed to be a pivotal one. I also loved some of the photography, as I feel the film did a great job of showing off the city of Philadelphia, from Rocky's housing complex, to the infamous scene where he runs the steps.

RATING: 8/10 Not a perfect '10' but still a good flick and one that I'll certainly enjoy rewatching again someday.

MOVIES WATCHED: 164
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 837

October 16, 2010 8:49pm