Rocky Balboa: The Movie (and Some Detours): NO SPOILERS

For starters, I love boxing matches and I love boxing movies.

My enjoyment of boxing began when Friday night fights were telecast and my dad would let me choose a boxer and we would have a bet. This carried over to special night fights and fights on the Wide World of Sports. I began to become familiar with names like Ray Patterson and Sonny Liston and with the king of the sport: Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali.

In junior high and on into high school, one of the Spokane stations telecast boxing matches late Friday nights. I remember these as Boxing from the Forum and possibly Boxing from the Olympic. These fights featured obscure boxers hoping to climb the ladder of success and boxers who fought for years and never got anywhere and boxers who had been in some big fights but were in decline.

I remember coming home from dances and flipping on the fights and seeing such luminaries as Danny Lopez or Ray "Windmill" White or any number of white boxers with the nickname "Irish".

It became a joke between me and John Posnick and we began to think of everyone as Irish. We'd make up names like Alfredo Rodriquez and call out, "And in this corner, in the yellow trunks, from Los Angeles, California, weighing in at 131 pounds, welcome Irish Alfredo Rodriquez. Posnick's nicklname for me was Irish. We laughed and laughed. Irish Mike Quarry. Irish Steven O'Connor. Irish Raymond Pert or Raymond Irish Pert.


When "Rocky" came to Spokane in the late winter of 1976, I went to see it five times at the Garland Theater, bought the soundtrack album, and was blown away with disbelieving ecstasy when it won the Oscar for Best Picture.

My love for boxing on television translated easily into my love for boxing movies. I could watch Raging Bull or When We Were Kings every day of the week. In When We Were Kings, one of my favorite movie moments occurs, let alone boxing movie moments: Norman Mailer is being interviewed. He had ringside seats at the Ali/Foreman Rumble in the Jungle, the subject of When We Were Kings.

As you might know, Ali's strategy in that fight was to let Foreman pound on him for several rounds. Foreman slugged like a pile driver. Ali endured a barrage of punches to the body and to his arms as he covered his face, leaned against the ropes, and let Foreman pound on him.

At some point in that fight, with Foreman unloading on Ali with punches that would flatten a Lebanon cedar, Mailer can hear Ali taunting Foreman: "That all you got, George? That all you got?" No would could talk smack like Ali. And, of course, Ali picked the right moment in the eighth round and pushed Foreman away and with a flurry of punches knocked him out.

I remember Ali's moment of victory against Foreman with crystal clarity. I was listening to the fight on the radio in the South Warren dormitory at Whitworth College. Several of us poured out of our dorm rooms into the hallway and were in a shared stupor of joy and disbelief.

It was widely believed that Foreman was invincible: Ali had done the unimaginable. He knocked out George Foreman. We are all giving each other five and whooping it up on South Warren's second floor.

I think I love boxing because of Shakespeare's tragedies and history plays. Those plays are about the human will in trying situations, whether in military battle or under the demands of political pressure.

In Shakespeare's pressure cooker, the will being tested, what today is called mental toughness, is magnified and we see what strengths the tragic characters possess and we see the fissures in their characters. We see what they've got, what they are made of when they face death.

Likewise, the boxer. Seeing a boxing match is as close as we come to watching two combatants go at each other with homicidal force. Potentially, any boxing match could end in death. So, like the Shakespeare hero whose character is exposed by his proximity to death, so the boxer.

And so "Rocky Balboa". But before I write more, let me just say that if you are a hard-boiled cynic who demands logical realism and naturalism in movies, then stay away from this movie. If you scoff in the face of nostalgia and if you are suspicious of movies that overtly pull you toward the softer emotions, don't see "Rocky Balboa".

But if you'd like to re-enter the world of "Rocky", the world that so enraptured me in the winter of 1977 that I went to Spokane's Garland Theater five times to see "Rocky" again and again and again and again, then this movie is for you. If you enjoy senseless acts of kindness, a father and son struggling to find each other, an old boxer in grief, a man with a fire in his belly he has to quench, a love for dogs he can't quench, and if you enjoy entering an implausible story in a rough and hard bit South Philadelphia world, then by all means come see "Rocky Balboa" and let yourself get caught up in this saga.

I never thought I'd go to this movie. I loved "Rocky III" so much, I thought I'd never go back to another Rocky movie. I so enjoyed the brash diction and the fierce tenacity of Mr. T playing Clubber Lang and the story of Rocky's boxing heart needing resurrection and the way that Apollo Creed and Adrian come to his rescue; I so enjoyed the way "Rocky III" parallelled the Rumble in the Jungle. Balboa seduced Clubber Lang, in their rematch, to punch himself out. And Rocky talked smack! "You ain't so bad!" "You ain't nothin!'". Rocky even does that Ali humiliation move where he lays his glove on his opponent's head at arm's length. It's a message. It says, "I can measure you. I can stand close to you without protection. I can take whatever you have. You can't get me." Rocky barks at Clubber, hands at his side, "Come on! Knock me out! The whole world's watching!" I didn't want to be disappointed by a Rocky movie inferior to number III. I never saw IV. I never V.

But, my sisters and brother-in-law wanted to see "Rocky Balboa" and I figured it had been since the summer of 1982 since I saw Rocky III at the Wilma theater with Scott and Jeff Stuart, and we ate Hot Tamales, that I could handle it if "Rocky Balboa" turned out to be bad.

"Rocky Balboa" is not set in the world we all live in. If you want it to be in the world you and I know, stay home. Walk out your door. Go shopping at Yoke's or IGA. There you can experience our world.

But, if you'd like to step into a world where hard work and kindness pay off in their own ways and a world where a sixty year old boxer can train again and get in the ring with a champ half his age and if you want to watch this sixty year old Rocky struggle with what he really has fire in his belly for, then you can enjoy this movie.

I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I surrendered myself from the outset to the Rocky world. I enjoyed how much South Philadelphia's Lucky Seven bar and the people who populated Rocky's neighborhood made me think of Kellogg in my younger years; I enjoyed how much the men in Kellogg longed for a Rocky and sometimes a Rocky-like figure came along. Rich Porter was a baskeball player in the late fifties who fit the bill. So was Tommy Brainard in the late sixties until he met his death by electrocution in a training room whirlpool. "Rocky Balboa" captures the yearnings that people without privilege have for one their own to go out into the world and kick some ass. Rocky did this in "Rocky" through "Rocky IV", with some trip ups along the way.

You can see how he fares in "Rocky Balboa".

Oh! Be sure to stay for the credits. The credits features a heartwarming series of video images that will transport you to the City of Brotherly Love and make you wish you could join the people portrayed and enter even more fully into Rockyworld.

******

I wrote this review of "When we Were Kings" about six years ago:

Intellectually, psychologically, politically, morally, spiritually, Muhammad Ali was the most electrifying, compelling, principled athlete of our time, maybe of all time. Quick-thinking, a brilliant ring strategist, a charismatic man of peace and hope, Ali used his boxing success and his popularity to inspire people, bring political injustice to light, and, maybe above all, to entertain.

This documentary brilliantly portrays the complexities of Ali as well as the complexities of the United States and of Zaire. Ali becomes an emblem for African heritage, resistance to the Viet Nam war, oppression in the USA, and the struggle of African-Americans to forge an authentic identity. Thus, the breadth and depth of this movie. The boxing match is the film's climax, but oddly, not its focus, exactly.

The focus is much more on being African and African-American. Spike Lee weighs in. So does Don King. We hear stories of atrocities in Zaire. We hear James Brown, B. B. King, and also interviews with citizens of Zaire.

In all of this brilliant coverage, I thought George Foreman was portrayed sympathetically. It would have ruined this movie had Foreman been its stooge. He wasn't. Powerful, reserved, confident, dignified, Foreman loses to Ali because Ali took a huge, unpredictable risk; I think it was a measured risk on Ali's part, but Ali banked on being able to withstand body punches long enough to tire out Foreman and the movie shows us how Ali began working on this strategy very early in his training. Other ring strategy is discussed. Norman Mailer and George Plimpton add insightful analysis, especially of Ali's artistry.

I enjoyed every moment of this film: the music, boxing clips, interviews, historical background, political exploration, religious dimensions, everything.

***

Here's the Clubber Lang/Rocky Balboa rematch: