I Play Rocky review – Anthony Ippolito adds knockout sweetness to the story of Stallone’s Hollywood triumph

Portraying the humour, passion and grit that took the actor from bit parts to Oscar glory, this making-of tale is even more mythic than the original movie

For fun, excitement and the transcendental thrill of success, there’s nothing to touch this very enjoyable drama about the making of Sylvester Stallone’s Oscar-winning 1976 boxing movie, Rocky. It’s a movie of duplicates and surfaces and heartfelt imitations. Perhaps not very profound but, as Oscar Wilde’s Lord Henry Wotton says, it is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

It is the story of the struggling young Italian-American unknown who’d had some minor acting jobs – including softcore pornography – but wrote a thumpingly good screenplay inspired by the underdog white boxer Chuck Wepner, who briefly knocked Ali down in 1975. With tremendous self-belief, Stallone insisted he play the lead role himself, holding out against vast cash offers to just take the writing credit and let an established star into the ring.