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I was never much of a Sylvester Stallone fan as a kid.
But I learned to appreciate the man as I got older.
I was even there opening night forJudge Dredd(which, sadly, stank).
That bit I had to rewind twice, to verify I heard it right.
Intentional or not, it works.
But, well, why be subtle or restrained in a movie about Sylvester Stallone?
Zimny, a veteran music-video and concert-doc director, treats Stallone like a bit of a rock star.
By and large, Stallone narrates his own story, which means he controls it.
(He also executive-produced the film.)
We dont hear much about his tumultuous private life or his controversies.
The bombs discussed are a select few.
SoSlyisnt a critical movie.
But its also not a hagiography, either.
It adopts Stallones own partly bemused attitude toward his own career.
Stallones limitations as an actor were the keys to his success.
Thats true of all movie stars, but its maybe truer of him than anyone else.
Stallone understandably has a higher estimation of the emotional resonance of some of those films than I do.
His acting may have been stiff, but the sincerity was there.
He channeled his feelings about his father into his big acting moments in these movies.
Sage tragically died in 2012.)
Stallone feels strongly about these laterRockyfilms, regardless of what others may think of them.
But in this, he appears to have found peace.
These movies, he seems to suggest, were more expressions of frustration and impotence than anything else.
As a movie,Slyis something of a mess.
But as a portrait of a messy man, it can be quite moving.
