Sly is less a straight documentary about the life and times of Sylvester Stallone and more of a cautionary tale that poses the very real possibility that you can’t have it all in the entertainment industry. You can either have a stable home life with well-adjusted relationships with your spouse and children, or you can become one of the most recognizable celebrities the world has ever known. The film not only shows the choices Stallone made in his own life when attempting to strike this balance (often unsuccessfully), but examines how his many personal ups and downs are mirrored in his blockbuster film franchises, including Rocky, Rambo, and The Expendables.
The framework of the film is that Stallone and his longtime wife Jennifer Flavin are packing up their West Coast home to head back to the East Coast. So throughout the movie, we see movers carefully packing up familiar artifacts from Sly’s nearly 50 years as an actor, writer, director, and producer—statues, artwork, and other collectibles that mark the many iconic characters he’s created and portrayed. While this is happening, Stallone is walking us through what the catalysts were that spawned these iconic characters, including how his underdog story as an unsuccessful actor turned into the screenplay for the first Rocky (which garnered him an Oscar nomination), or how his interactions with Vietnam veterans made him want to transform John Rambo from the homicidal maniac he was in the original novel into something more empathetic but still angry. Even The Expendables was born out of him noticing that action heroes of his generation were seen by Hollywood executives as too old to still do action movies. (Based on how much of a beating his body took during the shooting of the first film in that franchise, maybe those executives were right.)
Sly is directed by veteran doc filmmaker and editor Thom Zimny, who specializes in working with celebrity subjects (living and dead), including Bruce Springsteen (who has been his constant filmmaking partner for nearly 20 years), Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Elvis Presley. Zimny’s style here is to build his character of today’s Stallone using bits and pieces of his past, going back to his childhood being raised by an abusive father, an eccentric mother, and an envious brother (Frank Stallone is featured quite prominently in the film).
But the filmmaker and Sly aren’t afraid to show moments where Stallone went wrong, with both career choices (Stop or My Mom Will Shoot, anyone?) and personal failures, culminating in the 2012 death of his troubled son Sage at the age of 36. He looks at images of his three daughters on the red carpet with him when they were quite young and contemplates why he made that particular movie instead of making their lives more fulfilling. It's an intimate and emotional journey, during which Stallone admits many regrets and disappointments, while he also admits that his heroes should never die and discusses the lengths he’s gone to make sure that never happens to the characters he’s played.
The film features some really illuminating interviews with Stallone friends and admirers, such as his one-time rival Arnold Schwarzenegger (who fully admits that Stallone set the pace of success in the action world, and Arnold just tried to keep up), Quentin Tarantino, filmmaker John Herzfeld, film critic Wesley Morris, and Rocky co-star Talia Shire. Stallone acts as a producer on the movie, which would normally make me a little dubious about the final product, but Sly feels honest, even if a great deal of his life and work is left out. I especially love the attention paid to one of Stallone’s best acting roles, in James Mangold’s Cop Land, in which he shares the screen with his hero, Robert De Niro. The film was a flop, but it showed a lot of people the range that Stallone possessed yet never allowed himself to explore. That might be the story of Sly’s life and career, but I don’t think there are many things he would have done differently.
The film begins streaming Friday, November 3, on Netflix.
Did you enjoy this post? Please consider supporting Third Coast Review’s arts and culture coverage by making a donation. Choose the amount that works best for you, and know how much we appreciate your support!