Rocky

Rocky; sports drama, USA, 1976; D: John G. Avildsen, S: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith

Rocky, an Italian boxer, never achieved a great success in his career, even though he is very strong. He earns his money as a debt collector and falls in love with a very shy and clumsy pet store clerk Adrian. But Rocky's life will change when he is accidentally selected to fight the heavyweight champion Apollo Creed. After a long training overlooked by his old mentor, Rocky loses the match but ends up with Adrian.

Interesting and uplifting "underdog" boxer drama "Rocky" was once very popular, and still has some fresh moments because it is focused on character development, and not on fights, as later sequels did. "Rocky" is a surprisingly good film with a calm and well thought out iconography of old school, and its reputation would be even greater hadn't it been followed by weak sequels. Sylvester Stallone gave probably the greatest performance of his career as the tough-gentle title hero, who demonstrates that he can be very charming, funny and human (his monologue to Mickey: "Talking about your prime. What about my prime, Mick? At least you had a prime! I didn't have no prime. I didn't have nothing."; "Some people think that being shy is a disease, but it don't bother me none"), traits he exchanged for tough-monolithic action persona from the 80s onwards, even though he has an awful accent, yet the small star of the story is the enchanting Talia Shire as the shy Adrian with that woolly hat and glasses, his love interest, since the interaction between this unlikely couple, a bruiser and an intellectual, has chemistry and spark. Indeed, the sole character of Rocky is much more sympathetic when he jokingly calls Adrian towards himself on the couch in order to protect her from the "big bugs" in the room than when he drinks raw egg yolks in a beer mug, but the characters and the naively optimistic story were still set up in an intelligent and ambitious way.

Grade:++