On the Sly, why? The hunk turns talkative, but is not candid

Parbina Rashid

Nobody can call him the monosyllabic hunk anymore, not after watching Netflix’s latest documentary, ‘Sly’. Right from scene one, where he faces the camera and asks, “Do I have any regrets? Hell, yeah, I have regrets!” He then talks and talks and continues for 95 minutes. He has plenty to say, especially when it comes to his Hell’s-Kitchen-to-Hollywood story!

The tone is self-reflective and philosophical. The action begins at the art gallery of Sylvester Stallone’s house. He tells us about his childhood in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, his abusive father, and unpredictable mother.

Director Thom Zimny banks on nostalgia as he shows Stallone listening to old interviews using a cassette player and analysing his former self. Stallone even returns to his old Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood and chats up a few residents.

“I grew up in a household where there was plenty of physicality (read violence),” says Stallone. And, we get the idea. When a young Stallone is shown playing polo, he gets physically assaulted by his father in the middle of the game and later at the age of 40, when he restarts his game, he is meted out the same treatment once again by his father.

The negative presence of his father is always casting its shadow on him. When he writes the character of Rocky Balboa or Rambo, his father’s influence can be felt. He writes these characters in a way so that ‘old pain from the past gets replaced with new pain’. “I wish I had a father like Rocky,” he admits towards the end. Now, we know Rocky and Rambo at the personal level.

But that’s all Sly wants us to know. As Zimny takes us through the highs and lows of Sly’s career, he has an interesting line-up of talking heads. It includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sly’s younger brother Frank Jr, his co-star Henry Winkler, long-time collaborator John Herfzeld, actress Talia Shire, director Quentin Tarantino, and critic Wesley Morris.

Arnold’s admission about their competition during their peak years is refreshing.

But Zimny is completely silent about Stallone’s personal life. None of his family members gets featured in the real sense of the word. He just refers to his wife as ‘my wife’ and we are at a loss to pinpoint which one. He has two ex-wives and a current one. His current wife Jennifer appears in the documentary along with their three daughters. But it’s just a visual. One has to either refer to the Wikipedia page on him to know more about them or watch the reality show, ‘The Family Stallone’. Even the tragic end of his son Sage has been barely touched. We don’t come to know what happened to Sage, who passed away in 2012.

It seems Stallone is not comfortable talking about a lot of things. Like, ‘The Party at Kitty and Stud’s’, which was a soft porn film from his struggling days. Nor the 2007 incident when customs officials in Australia discovered 48 vials of the synthetic human growth hormone Jintropin in his luggage. Not even the rape charges.

The production quietly ticks all the right boxes as scenes from these two movies are cleverly inter-woven with the narrative. The consummate actor that Stallone is, he does a splendid job with the piece to camera, playing to Zimny’s camera angles.

A delight for Rocky and Rambo fans, but not for somebody wanting to know the real Stallone. Sylvester cashes in on his pain but does not reveal his vulnerability. His only weakness is not having spent enough time with his family. If one can call that a weakness. “Had I not been so self-obsessed…” he starts and ends with a note that he wants to be a juggler, juggling family, life, career…

Good that he has a plan afoot to course-correct whatever regrets he has. And, do we have any regrets for tuning into the show on the very first day itself? No regrets, but disappointment. Wish Sylvester the man didn’t bow down to Sylvester the producer (it is made in collaboration with Stallone’s production company, Balboa Productions) and came out a little more candid.