Let’s get something out of the way, I’m a Rocky Balboa fan. I’m pro-Balboa. I wanted him to win from the first fight I saw him in and I wanted him to win when he fought that guy 56 years younger than him in Rock 6: Balboa. So it is in no way condemning the man, the myth when I share the following thoughts on what was at the time a big favourite of mine. Rocky IV. I just watched it again (what else am I gonna do at 3 in the morning on a Saturday nay Sunday?)
If you need refreshing a bit, this is the one with Dolph Lundgren in it. Yeah, that one. It’s amazing watching the later Rocky films when you’re (a) not eight anymore and (b) haven’t seen them for a while. Rocky is a great film, don’t care what you say – it is. Rocky II, bit of a re-tread but still not too stupid. Rocky III and IV are daft and V and VI try and redress the balance of 80s glam with retreading the grit of Rocky, the former terribly the latter rather more successfully. But I’m here today to talk about Rocky IV.
Apollo Creed, former foe now best mate, wants to fight the monster from the bloc, not J-Lo but Ivan Drago. Rocky is concerned for his mate, suggesting that at 56 Apollo is maybe best shying away from a fight with a nine-foot poster boy for communism with arms like a big muscle-y man’s arms and legs like a big muscle…you get where I’m going with the particularly unimaginative similes here. However, the ego of Creed cannot be held back and he lines up a fight with Drago. Now, I’m not saying anyone deserves to die (I have said that sentence a few times over the last week or so) but Creed’s ring entrance to the bout borders on being over the top, like Josef Fritzl’s parenting borders on being a bit too touchy-feely, and he’s asking to be put on his arse. If not being lethally beaten by a man-machine from Russia. I mean – come on – James Brown is actually there singing with about 30 or 40 dancers while Creed dances into the ring in a big stars-and-stripes hat, waistcoat and a cane (I’m not gonna bother writing spoiler alert before every plot point I describe but if you don’t want to know Apollo Creed dies, and didn’t pick up on the pretty heavy hint, I’d stop reading now).
The fight between Creed and Drago doesn’t last long. They say pride cometh before a fall and for Apollo, it comes before brain death too. At his insistence the corner doesn’t stop the fight and Drago throws the referee across the ring when he tries to stop the fight. He then plonks a good right hook on Apollo’s noggin and he falls to the ground and starts twitching like a fish in a boat, or a Michael Thomas after scoring a League winning goal in 1989 (depends on your field of reference. Probably). Sadly Apollo doesn’t share the healing prowess of the god he was named after (yeah I know my stuff eh? But I am kind of assuming that’s who he was named after, they never went into that particular back story. Maybe he was named after the cinema chain) and dies. One thing I never picked up on, watching this as a child, was that Drago is declared the winner as Apollo lies slowly twitching less and less. Yes, he knocks Creed dead but surely –even in a non-title fight – throwing the referee across the ring is cause for a disqualification. Maybe the decision was overturned – again its a storyline not explored by the film. More shockingly Drago utters the inimitable line “if he dies, he dies” while Creed is being alive for the last few seconds, is anyone that cold (obviously he is, but you get my question). Of course this is only more shocking if you have a humanist type worldview, not if your worldview is primarily concerned with the rules of boxing being followed, if this is you then just read that sentence as ‘Less shockingly Drago utters…etc.
The Creed-Drago stuff is just the pre-amble to the main event though, and of course story wise it gives the Italian Stallion a reason to fight Drago. The writers were clearly running low on ides though and killing off one of the main characters, Mickey, had prolonged Rocky III, and so it was here. If they had just jumped into Rocky defending the Western freedom then it would have only been about an hour long. I say this for it is worth saying this film weighs in at under 90 minutes and it has four, that’s FOUR montages. Not short ones either. I’d say at least fifteen minutes of Montage. A sixth of the film is a montage. Now that’s 80s-ness film making for you in a nutshell. The first of these montages is a (slightly homoerotic) gathering of emotional memories from Rocky as he speeds along in his car at night thinking about vengeance. Well thinking about Apollo so not actually vengeance, its his reason for vengeance. I say its about Apollo but its kind of about Rocky, there’s some bits of him and Adrian in there that are nothing to do with Apollo. The bits of Stallone acting all ‘remembering’ in the studio pretending to be in a car are very much like the bits in Garth Marenghi when he has his monologues whilst driving, almost like it might have been a pastiche.
So Rocky is out of retirement…and announces he will fight Drago on Christmas Day and not be paid anything. What? Who is planning this thing? On what planet is that a good idea? I mean I know people go to the cinema on Christmas in America but…still….for free? It pure pisses Adrian off, she thinks he should have at least got paid, and she’s maybe worried about him dying. And of course he insists on going to a little log cabin with no home comforts at all. It’s at this point that two things happen, the first thing is it seems to stop being about revenge and becomes a USA-RUSSIA thing and the second thing is Russia looks very like you’d imagine some 1980s American film makers would picture it. I’m just suggesting that its bit stereotypical. That’s all. I’m unlikely to get the chance to explore if this is the case. Should I ever get access to a time machine I’m pretty sure, despite many grand ideas, I’d go to sixties London for a longer than necessary (maybe even twice, I could hang about with myself from the first time round – people would just assume we were brothers. Or put it down to a bad bag of LSD) and maybe 1970s Cuba, quickly dash to Dallas 1963 to check out who did bloody do it before going back to 60s London. I’d clean forget about going to 1985 Russia. I may remember the odd night when I was nodding off and think about writing it on the back of my hand so I would remember when I woke up in the morning, but who can find a biro when they need one? So I’d fall asleep, probably have a pretty disturbing dream (I’ve abandoned my life to time travel, remember) and forget all about 1985 Russia.
The heavy montaging covers Rocky’s training. It’s about eight minutes of soft rock – with a quick bit in the middle where Adrian comes to see him to say she’s sorry she was angry at him for going to fight someone who might kill him in Russia (on Christmas Day). But either side of that its Rocky running (in a big bomber jacket)- stubble, Rocky sawing wood- heavy stubble, Rocky chopping down a tree – short beard, Rocky doing chin ups – pretty thick beard, and Rocky lifting up Adrian, Paulie and Apollo’s coach in a horse carriage- still pretty thick beard (facial hair kind of plateaus growth-wise at thick beard). All with John Cafferty’s epic ‘Hearts on Fire’ blaring out. Yes I did have to google that. This is all intercut (still in montage) with Drago training at a state of the art lab, all connected to machines and shit. Like proper futuristic. We even see Rocky climb a literal mountain at the end. Yeah – they used literal imagery, figuratively. And I know Rocky films aren’t about realism, apart from maybe bits of Rocky IIIIV and Rocky IIIIX, but he doesn’t spar with anyone. Come on, what boxer wouldn’t spar before a fight? (Rocky). The montage seems to suggest that chopping a tree with an axe is similar to sparring. I suppose they know more than me.
You think that was a lot of montage – you think there cant be more, but of course the montage is the staple of the Rocky Fight. You see the first couple of rounds and then montage through the rest until you get the last round. But before the montage we get to see the crowd chanting Drago’s name and boo-ing Rocky, the evil westerner. These are a people suppressed by a regime you see, believing their way is best and adoring this product of their technology and training. Fierce, loyal people these communists – they certainly could not be swayed by a small American man mainly being beaten to a pulp. (Yes he does win, but they have already started chanting his name before that). As Drago says “he’s not a man he’s like a piece of iron”, people love a piece of iron it would seem. And so it is, the Russian cannot break the piece of iron and he is defeated by Rocky in the last round – a victory I, for one, never saw coming. And with that comes the fall of communism. Despite being hit in the head very hard every few seconds the sea change of the Russian people (on Christmas day) has been noted by Balboa “During this fight I’ve seen a lot of changes [Cut to Russian Military leader in crowd stroking chin, obviously eradicating an entire ideology from his belief system]..If I can change, you can change….everybody can change”. I was not fucking crying when I typed that and anyone who says I was is a liar.
In many ways Rocky was ahead of its time. And I don’t mean by having a film entirely filled with montages and images filling in for storyline (take that Hollywood!). Indeed I am talking about the fall of communism. Rocky 4 was released six years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yes, people will say it was about the breakdown of the Unitarian belief system that holds a people together in a communist state. Yes, the Russian nation had had enough – suppressed as a collective by the suffocating power of an ideology promising much but delivering little. And yes people will say it was a backlash against the tyranny of a beautiful belief system gone rotten that threw down the shackles of the Eastern bloc (and allowed McDonalds and stuff to move in), but is it all too ridiculous to suggest the fourth instalment of, to my mind, the worlds finest heavyweight boxing based film serial had a little something to do with it? When Drago turns to the crowd, frustrated- but not yet beaten – he screams “for me, for me”. He is not fighting for his people, for his flag, for communism..he just wants to win for himself…and so we see that the victory is not in Rocky’s heart, or the people chanting his name but Drago being a big, self-obsessed ego maniac..the American Dream.
Footnote: When Adrian goes to Russia to make-up with Rocky it’s never really explained why she doesn’t bring their son. It’s Christmas he can’t be missing much school. A couple of times we are shown him watching the fight at home with a couple of other boys aged about ten. The only supervision appears to be that big rubbish robot he got bought in Rocky III. I’m sure someone was there, I’m over thinking it. But……and in no way is this over thinking it, after he has delivered his address on ending the cold war he adds something about saying hello to his son who is probably watching past his bedtime and should be in bed. Now I can’t remember precisely if the world was different in 1985 with regards time zones but I haven’t read anything about a big change since. So, why would it be past his son’s bed time? If the fight was in Russia at night it would be daytime in America, at worst it was in the afternoon and his son would have just got up very early. It’s like no-one thought about these things when they were writing this film.
