4 out of 5

Director: John G. Avildsen

It hits all the beats you’d expect and perhaps set a template for the training montage, and the underdog done good (though of course those tropes had been around before), but besides the flick now being a classic, there’s something sticking about Stallone’s breakthrough film.  Something about Avildsen’s very plain direction, something about Sly’s marble-mouthed approach, something about Talia Shire always appearing bundled up and doughty – Rocky IS a unique experience, despite it playing, at a high level, as the cliche triumph film.  Perhaps it’s how humble the whole thing is.  Local leg-breaker Rocky Balboa lives in a poor part of Philly as gets picked on by boxing club owner Burgess Meredith for squandering his potential on low-paying tough guy gigs.  He practices jokes to tell the quiet girl at the pet shop in front of his pet turtles and turns down a publicity-grab fight with superstar boxer Apollo Creed (black vs. white, celebrity vs. local) because Creed’s the best, and he’s just Rocky.  The flick starts with soulful music and low profile credits, and director Avildsen most patiently follows Rocky around town for a while, just capturing events with a matching “this is how things happen” flair.  And cue the training montage and “Adriannn”.  But as he did with Rambo – which is structurally similar to this in many ways, and thus plays like the cracked out older brother of Rocky – Stallone’s script smartly works in a character study to the feel-good, the effect of the life on this upstart, the emptiness of success.  It would’ve been interesting had Sly’s script happened across in its original form, but the film is equally interesting in its blend of cynicism and crowd pleaser.  Some cheesy freeze frames stick out, but otherwise this is a surprisingly meaty “inspiring” film.