You can say that about all of Stallone\u2019s films, including the documentary you\u2019re watching. Way before Marvel\/DC movies regularly gave us outcasts who eventually become superheroes who save the day, Stallone spent a huge chunk of his career playing heroic palookas, brawny, street-smart, damn-near-bulletproof warriors who no one believed in. And yet, he obsessively fought the good fight \u2014for him, for us, for the good ol\u2019 U.S. of A<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s an image he once again leans into proudly in Sly<\/em>. Released just a few months after his longtime box-office rival\/frenemy Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped that three-part docuseries Arnold<\/em> on Netflix, Sly<\/em> gives us a brief, full-length version of the star\u2019s history. (Just as Stallone appeared in Arnold<\/em> to talk about their prime years, Schwarzenegger pops up a few times in Sly<\/em> to do the same thing.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sly<\/em> is a talking-head doc, but it\u2019s a doc where the subject practically refuses to sit down. Director Thom Zimny (who has directed several films on Bruce Springsteen, another emblem of A-list, working-class heroism) captures Stallone in a perpetual state of full attention. Whether he\u2019s dropping accumulated pearls of wisdom or watching clips from his filmography on a projected wall in his house, he\u2019s usually standing up, practically showing that the battered-and-bruised 77-year-old still has some life in him. (I\u2019m surprised the movie isn\u2019t called Sly Still Standing<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Filmed while movers cleared out his California mansion for a move to his Palm Beach mansion, Stallone gives a condensed tour of his life. He constantly reminds us that his father was the one that drove him to be an unstoppable force. As you would expect, the old man was an abusive, competitive prick, pulling such jealous, heinous shit as attacking his son on horseback and crushing his dreams of being a polo player not once, but twice. And when Rocky<\/em> was a box-office, Oscar-winning success, his father started shopping around a script for his own boxing picture \u2014 \u201cthe real Rocky<\/em>,\u201d as his other son Frank remembers him calling it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A heavy amount of Sly<\/em> is devoted to saluting Stallone\u2019s skills not just as an actor or a director, but also as a writer. As a movie star who notoriously rewrote nearly every film he starred in, Stallone mostly reminisces about all the work he put in making the story work even before cameras rolled. Morris, Talia Shire, Quentin Tarantino, and friend\/filmmaker John Herzfeld are just some of the handful of heads who also speak on Stallone\u2019s pen game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sly<\/em> predictably keeps many embarrassing, low points from his life and career out of this. Although we get a few respectable clips from The Party at Kitty and Stud\u2019s<\/em>, the no-budget softcore porn he did in his early days (of course, after Rocky<\/em> hit big, it was re-released and renamed The Italian Stallion<\/em>), no mention of that is made. Even though he admits to making misfires that were either too ambitious (like his Rocky<\/em> follow-up F.I.S.T.<\/em>, a quasi-biopic where he basically played Jimmy Hoffa) or too over-the-top (remember Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot<\/em>?), his more infamous cinematic disasters (like directing the Saturday Night Fever<\/em> sequel Staying Alive<\/em> or Rhinestone<\/em>, aka that rom-com where he sang country with Dolly Parton) are also ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the most surprising omission in Sly\u2019s life story is the Creed<\/em> movies. I mean, the first got him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and he directed<\/em> the second one. I know that everything that happened with Creed III<\/em><\/a> left a bad taste in dude\u2019s mouth, but this looks bitter and petty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s also quite limited on the family life. He talks about the ups-and-downs he had with his late son Sage, whom he cast as his son in Rocky V<\/em>. However, he doesn\u2019t bring up his second son Seargeoh, who played Rocky\u2019s newborn son in Rocky II<\/em> and was later diagnosed as autistic. He would rather have you concentrate on the family he currently has, a gorgeous clan you can also watch on Paramount+<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s quite clear Sly<\/em> is another cinematic example of Stallone manipulating the narrative to make himself look like a man who, despite all the lumps he\u2019s taken, is not down for the count just yet. But I\u2019d be lying if I said he didn\u2019t take me on an engaging, feel-good journey. For a guy who\u2019s \u201cin the hope business\u201d and hates \u201csad endings,\u201d I gotta admit that Stallone\u2019s still got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Sly” streams on Netflix <\/a>Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/sly2-1024x577.jpg\")
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