Rocky IV
By Peter John Gardner
Dear Mr. Sylvester Stallone,
Greetings and my most sincere salutations. My name is Peter, and I have been working on a project of sorts that revolves around your career. Perhaps you may have run across it when Googling your name during a break from filming John Rambo. In a nutshell, what I'm doing is watching each of your movies in chronological order, starting with your memorable performance in the porn flick, "The Party at Kitty and Stud's", and trying to derive some sort of meaning from each one in the hopes that I could find some enlightenment and/or purpose in my life. I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. With all due respect, I am not your biggest fan. Other than the Rocky movies and a few others, I find most of your work painful to sit through. I hope that doesn't insult you, but I'm sure that you realize that films "Rhinestone" are piles of horseshit. The project is a fasting of sorts, or cleansing if you will. I made a pact with myself that if I could get through each movie in your filmography and pull something useful out of it, then I can pretty much do anything. While some entries are stronger than others (a few are obvious rush jobs that I did just to get out of the way so that I could get to a better movie), I think I've done ok with it so far.
Now after watching "Rocky IV" the other night in this new context, I am starting to have some serious concerns about your work and mine. You see, almost every one of your films up to this date has had the overall theme of an underdog overcoming the odds. That's fine. You stick to what works best for you. It's not like anybody chastised Hitchcock for making too many suspense films, and I've been trying to ignore that theme and pull something different out of each movie. What concerns me is that I'm starting to see another thread emerging in your work, and it's not making my life any easier as a writer. "Rocky IV" is the middle chapter in a trio of movies that you've done that address the Cold War, and I'm kind of stuck because I wanted to save my comments regarding the Cold War when I got to "Rambo III". The only other thread I can latch onto in this movie is the usual underdog theme, and fuck that.
Don't get me wrong. I love "Rocky IV", but not in the same way that I love the first Rocky movie. The first one I can legitimately defend as a quality piece of cinema that deserved every praise and award bestowed on it when it was released. This one, like its predecessor, I enjoy on a pure cheese ball factor. I mean, come on, there's a TALKING ROBOT that hangs around the Balboa home in this movie. There are THREE music video style montages: two training montages and one after Apollo Creed is killed by Ivan Drago where Rocky goes for a drive and has flashbacks that recap the previous three movies for us. Because, you know, people watching the fourth installment in a series of films don't have any idea what went on in the previous films and need a four minute song and montage of clips to remind us.
I digress. Back to the Cold War issue. This film has Rocky facing the human embodiment of Mother Russia himself, Ivan Drago. The first shot of the movie is two boxing gloves, one with an American flag and the other with a USSR flag, colliding before the opening credits. Rocky wears American flag boxing trunks while Drago wears red and yellow. I saw that you wrote the script for this movie. Perhaps you've learned a thing or two about making your metaphors a bit more subtle since this movie was made?
Much of this movie is just ludicrous and hard to believe. We're shown early in the film that Ivan's steroid pumped arms can punch twice as hard as the strongest boxer can. So, this basically means he can fucking destroy someone with ease, and he does so in the final match against Rocky. Balboa gets fucking wrecked for the first few minutes of the fight. Yet when Rocky lands one friggin' blow across Ivan's face midway through the fight, the tides turn for some unknown reason, and Rocky beats the shit out of him. Uh...how?
Earlier in the film, we are shown how much of a badass Ivan is when he goes up against Apollo Creed in another USA vs. USSR metaphoric match. Only that time, Drago not only demolishes Creed, but kills him. Creed, after all his pro-USA chest beating and arrogance, gets snuffed out in the ring.
Wait...
Blind patriotic flag waving and misguided "AMERICA IS #1" bravado and posturing? Where have I seen this before? Holy shit.
So were you making a prediction that the all-American tough guy attitude doesn't always work out as planned? Oh my god! Mr. Stallone, were you making political commentary on the war in Iraq fifteen years before it happened? Can you see things that we don't see, Sly?
Or maybe it was just your reaction to President Reagan's idiotic praise of Rambo (remember kids...Bush wasn't our first boneheaded president) in which he obviously missed the point of the character.
I'd rather think that you can see the future. That makes me look at "Demolition Man" in a whole new light. With that in mind, I can continue this project with a fresh outlook.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Peter Gardner
