Review: ‘I Play Rocky’ opens Denver Film Festival with a true winner

It’s tough to beat a film about a film for opening a film festival, and “I Play Rocky” proved an inspired choice to kick off the 49th Denver Film Festival. Screened for a capacity crowd in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House on Oct. 22, this warm, surprisingly funny tale about Sylvester Stallone and the making of “Rocky” has its story built right into the title.

Screenwriter Peter Gamble was on hand for a few remarks before the lights went down, and he mentioned that, on set, people were often wondering if Stallone himself was nearby. That’s because the actor portraying him, Anthony Ippolito, is almost a dead ringer for Stallone physically, but it was his flawless take on Stallone’s iconic voice that had people fooled.

In this film within a film, the now-legendary Hollywood tale of how Stallone convinced a studio to cast him — a virtual unknown — to play the lead in “Rocky” is brought to life with the same kind of uplifting story the original is famous for. Director Peter Farrelly escalates the series of scenes between Stallone, producers Irwin Winkler (P.J. Byrne) and Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell), and studio head Sandy Maddox (Tracy Letts) brilliantly and humorously. We watch as the actor-screenwriter holds fast to his demand that “I play Rocky” even as they dangle ever-increasing amounts of money in front of a man about to be evicted from his apartment along with his pregnant wife.

Letts (who plays a terrible father figure in “East of Eden”) is hilarious as the film mogul incensed that “a nobody” is yanking his chain over the film. But it turns out the script is just so damn good that they eventually give in to Stallone’s demands even as Maddox splutters his way through the whole process.

Making ‘Rocky’

The second part of the film focuses on the making of “Rocky,” depicted here as not just the lowest of low-budget productions, but one where the studio wants it to fail so they can insert a star in the lead role. Fortunately, they have proudly low-budget director John Avildsen in their corner — played here with delicious seediness by Jay Duplass.

Introducing himself to Stallone as “kind of a dick,” Avildsen is the hack with a heart who, despite his willingness to go cheap to get things done, pushes Stallone to get the film from good to great. Just as he avows that it’s not a boxing film but a character study, so too is “I Play Rocky” about the human story behind the film. Stallone is portrayed as an almost angelic figure — an artist so pure that he’s willing to feed his dog the dregs from a box of Froot Loops before he sells out his dream.

How true that is about the real Stallone is beside the point, as “I Play Rocky” focuses on a celebration of grit, guerrilla filmmaking and the power of a strong partner. In this story, that’s Stallone’s wife, Sasha, played beautifully by Denver’s own AnnaSophia Robb. Another treat is Matt Dillon as Stallone’s lousy father Frank. In the scene where he meets Sasha for the first time, he and his son share a few laughs about how he used to beat the younger Stallone as a kid while Sasha looks on, horrified.

“He’s an asshole,” Sasha tells Sly afterward, pushing back as the son tries to shrug off the abuse. Despite his father repeatedly calling him an idiot, Stallone still asks the old man to ring the bell at the end of the fight in “Rocky.”

“I Play Rocky” ends in a perfect spot, but adds footage of the final fight with Apollo Creed (an excellent Stephan James as Carl Weathers) during the credits. After 50 years, nine films in the franchise and a firm spot in America’s cultural landscape, the Rocky story never seems to lose its appeal. Lost over the decades was the real story at the heart of it all. “I Play Rocky” is not just a love letter to Hollywood and the underdog we all want to cheer for; it’s a lovely piece of filmmaking in its own right.