In which our heroes talk s*** about phoning it in, reboots and chasing critical acclaim
The Podcast
In our final episode about Sylvester Stallone we talk about what happens when a star begins to fade and after a run of financially successful movies in the 90s, Stallone goes looking for credibility with Copland. We look at other instances of career pivots and comebacks and also at Stallone’s post Copland career of rebbots and sequels, before chatting about his recent run on TV with Tulsa King
This is the 4th and final episode in our Stallone miniseries… previous episodes have covered the Netflix documentary “Sly”, the impact of the “Rocky-verse” and Stallone’s place in the pantheon of 80s action heroes
"it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward" – Copland and the search for credibility – Last Exit on Mainstream
When the star begins to fade
So far in this series we’ve looked at the 2023 Netflix documentary Sly, had a chat about Stallone’s biggest franchise, Rocky and had a look at his impact on 80s action movies but now we want to look at a stage in his career that I guess many actors get to and that’s kind of phoning it in…. or rather, he’s almost playing the same character in each film, like he’s firmly in his wheelhouse of musclebound action guy, which really for Stallone is the very end of the 80s and definitely the 90s with films like Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, The Specialist, movies that maybe aren’t that great but make a tonne of money
So Stallone in the 80s is proper franchise building, Rocky 2 is 1979, First Blood is 1982 and they sustain him through the decade with Rambo 3 in 1988 and Rocky 5 in 1990 and amongst these are films which are definitely in this wheelhouse, things we’ve spoken about in the podcast like Cobra in 1986, Over the Top…a marvellous film from my youth about Arm Wrestling in 1987, and Lock Up and Tango and Cash in 1989.
So these films are essentially him playing either Rocky or Rambo in a different situation but it feels like he’s trying to keep up with things going on around him, Tango and Cash feels like Stallone’s Lethal Weapon,
Then in the first couple of years of the 90s he does Oscar and Stop or my Mom will Shoot and they both miss the mark so he goes back to what he knows with action movies and peels off a run of Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, The Specialist (with Sharon Stone) Judge Dredd, Assassins and Daylight and he earns a load of money but are any of those actually any good?
So I reckon theres a pattern, or maybe not a pattern but you have these artists, actors, musicians etc who have massive early success and can’t follow it up, like they work for ages but they never hit the heights of the first album, or like AC/DC or Iron Maiden, or Ed Sheeran maybe…they find a formula that works and just repeat it over and over
There’s a few other examples of actors that move out of their wheelhouse and usually its from comedy to serious acting, and theres some actors that make one great film and then not a lot else and also those that disappear and make a comeback because some big name director takes a chance on them still having something to offer.
no one was letting Robert Downey Jr near a movie before Iron Man after all his struggles
So I’m sure some people will take the mickey out of me for this but I really like Adam Sandler and after his run of massive comedy films in the back half of the 90s, Happy Gilmore, Waterboy, Wedding Singer etc he does Punch Drunk Love which he’s great in, he’s really good in Reign Over Me and then again more recently after his run of Netflix comedies (which weren’t good) he’s good in Hustle and amazing in Uncut Gems and there’s another film called Men, Women and Children he’s good in about online/social media impacts on families and kids which ties in with a previous episode where we spoke about the The Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix
Other comic actors that turned to drama I guess, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey but they still kept one foot in the comedy that made them big, speaking of big Tom Hanks switched from comedic roles to dramatic ones
Obviously John Travolta made his comeback in Pulp Fiction and that kickstarted his career in the second half of the 90s…FaceOff, Broken Arrow, Get Shorty and then recently we’ve had other comebacks of sorts with Brendan Fraser, Key Huy Quan, like no one was letting Robert Downey Jr near a movie before Iron Man after all his struggles
So after that run of mediocre films Stallone goes looking for critical success, with Copland…where he’s working alongside some of the people that inspired him back in the 70s in Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro but he’s definitely looking for a bit of indie credibility
But Copland doesn’t get him quite the recognition he was hoping for and he kind of disappears for a bit, well disappears while still making a movie a year but the next notable entries in his filmography is 2006 and Rocky Balboa (Rocky 6), a Rambo sequel in 2008, Then he’s into the Expendables nonsense and more Rocky-verse stuff with Creed and Rambo Last Blood in 2019.
So now were here in 2024 and he’s about 500 years old, the most interesting thing I’ve seen him in for ages is Tulsa King, so I binged this towards the end of last year and thought it was a lot of fun. He plays a wiseguy who gets out of prison after about 20 years and the family don’t trust him but he thinks he’s entitled to a slice so they send him to Tulsa, Oklahoma and he ends up starting a protection racket and taking on a local biker gang….it’s nonsense but its really watchable and it’s got one of the guys from the Wire in it which is usually a good sign.
What do you think are his best pieces of work, like if you had to choose 5 films to showcase Sylvester Stallone what would you pick?
For me…and i’ve never been a massive fan so I’m sure people who love him will say different its Rocky, First Blood, Cliffhanger, Demolition Man and Copland, 3 of those are probably nailed on by everyone but Cliffhanger and Demolition Man were on loads when I was a teenager so I’d have to pick those
So there we go, a bit of a deep dive into Sylvester Stallone, the man who defined a genre and gave us THE classic underdog story.
Hopefully you’ll join us next time as we look into all things pop culture adjacent on Last Exit on Mainstream
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