I Play Rocky review: Anthony Ippolito anchors a spirited Sylvester Stallone biopic

Detailed summary

Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky stars Anthony Ippolito in the lead role. The film honours Sylvester Stallone's story and the Rocky franchise's cinematic legacy. But does this account of the film’s making deliver a knockout of its own? Here is our review.

Few Hollywood stories are as closely associated with the idea of an underdog as Sylvester Stallone’s journey to making Rocky. Yet, before Rocky Balboa became a cinematic icon, Stallone was a struggling actor who couldn’t convince the industry to give him a leading role. Directed by Peter Farrelly, I Play Rocky stars Anthony Ippolito as the young Stallone and follows his struggle to turn his screenplay into a film without surrendering the right to play its protagonist. AnnaSophia Robb, Matt Dillon, Toby Kebbell, PJ Byrne and Jay Duplass round out the principal cast.

The film traces Stallone’s journey from financial desperation and professional rejection to the creation of a screenplay inspired, in part, by the 1975 heavyweight boxing match between Muhammad Ali and underdog Chuck Wepner. When producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff recognise the potential of Rocky, the studio wants a more established actor for the lead. Stallone refuses to sell his screenplay without playing the character he has created, putting his future at considerable risk. His determination is familiar territory for anyone who has watched the original Rocky, but does this account of the film deliver a knockout of its own?

Ippolito carries the film with a performance that goes beyond reproducing Stallone’s distinctive speech and mannerisms. He captures the insecurity of a struggling actor without losing sight of the stubbornness that makes his eventual success believable. The performance is most effective when Stallone has to negotiate his worth with people who possess considerably more power than he does. Here is a man who knows what he wants but cannot be certain that his conviction will be enough to get it.

Farrelly, whose Green Book won the Academy Award for Best Picture, approaches the material with an evident affection for the Hollywood underdog story. Peter Gamble’s screenplay draws parallels between Stallone and the character he is fighting to portray.

One of the film’s most affecting…

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