Does Netflix have a secret stake in Planet Hollywood?
Just a few months after giving Arnold Schwarzenegger a three-hour pulp-piece documentary, the streaming giant is set to release Thom Zimny’s feature Sly, a documentary in which Sylvester Stallone is every bit as candid and introspective as the executive producer Sylvester Stallone wishes to be.
Cunning
The Conclusion Moments of insight mixed with moments of avoidance.
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations)
Director: Thom Zimny
1 hour 35 minutes
With Schwarzenegger, the documentary felt like a rip-off to the former California governor’s series FUBAR, but Stallone’s current TV series Tulsa King is on a different service and isn’t even mentioned in Sly. That doesn’t have to be the case. It’s not that Tulsa King has largely cemented its place as a key part of Stallone’s resume, but it’s just one of many small and not-so-small parts of his career and life that aren’t brought up in Cunning.
If Sly ultimately succeeds, it’s because Stallone is a pretty great observer of his own work. If it falls short, it’s because Stallone observes other aspects of his life in platitudes that sound insightful but are actually evasions that Zimny has to disguise through careful editing.
“Sly” centers on the actor, writer and director’s decision to move out of his opulent Los Angeles home, a shrine to Stallone’s art collection, his treasures of memorabilia and, based on the way the documentary was shot, a Estate with a disproportionate amount of memorabilia Rooms where you can stare into space and reflect on your career. Why is he leaving the house? It has something to do with the fact that Stallone abhors complacency and needs the creative renewal of a change of scenery.
Stallone’s personal candor reaches its climax in the discussion of his childhood, when he and his brother Frank – separately – address their abusive father and, in much more nebulous terms, their eccentric mother. Accompanied by scenes of Stallone revisiting the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of his youth, the documentary lays the foundation for his early relationship with films as an escape and his admiration for classic cinematic heroism – both Stallone’s and Schwarzenegger’s documentaries place great emphasis on this on Hercules films as a form of escape – and his early difficulties in acting. The Lords of Flatbush are discussed in detail. His softcore debut in The Party at Kitty and Stud’s is not mentioned. It’s not that I needed an hour to watch “The Party at Kitty and Stud’s,” but the lack of this series reflects the fact that Stallone is great when he wants to talk about something, but his version of his struggle is the only one , which appears in Cunning. It is a film marked by frequent omissions.
On the personal side, that means Stallone mostly wants to talk about his family and the decisions he’s had to make when prioritizing his work. He admits he has regrets, and Zimny occasionally throws in pictures of his family, but I’m pretty sure none of his three wives – two ex-wives and one current – are mentioned by name; Of his children, only his late son Sage is referenced, and largely in the context of Rocky V. That’s a decision I don’t disapprove of – although there’s a possibility that Paramount+ has exclusive rights to the family due to The Family Stallone Stallone did cross my mind – but Zimny’s attempts to rework and rework Stallone’s reticence don’t really work.
I think there’s a version of Sly that’s more reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone: The King of the Franchise, where Stallone breaks down the Rocky, Rambo, and Expendables franchises and explains how each of the films influenced his life and his This moment represents the potential of cinema. Because when he does that, he’s amazingly good.
The rest of his career is too often reduced to just “phases”, be it the comedy phase, which he regrets (but not with any depth), or the monosyllabic action star phase, which is responsible for the fact that it is always surprising at first clever and introspective Stallone can be. A few other films get a little more than perfunctory attention – FIST gets a few minutes as a Rocky follow-up; Copland gets some time, but for some reason he sees it as a failure. And then some films are strangely ignored, like Creed, which he clearly doesn’t see as being connected to his own Rocky films, a distinction that seems strange.
When Stallone is good, he’s so good that you can understand why Zimny doesn’t load up Sly with additional talking heads. Frank Stallone and John Hetzfeld carry most of the pre-star weight. Henry Winkler and Talia Shire take on the role of representative co-stars. Schwarzenegger appears and almost verbatim says exactly what Stallone said about him in HIS documentary, which is cute if you’ve seen both documentaries, but…like…why? I can understand why Zimny would have been happy to have Quentin Tarantino – apparently a HUGE “Lords of Flatbush” fan – and Wesley Morris as his outside observers, but once the opening: “It’s cool that Quentin Tarantino and Wesley Morris have enthusiastic feelings for Sylvester Stallone.” !” The reaction passes, I wouldn’t say either adds much.
By the end of “Sly,” the star proves himself a good enough explainer of his legacy that the documentary finds effective insight and poignancy — even though he is an overprotective guardian of that legacy and Zimny is ever so hesitant to shake him off his legacy Course.