A Very Alternative Christmas: Rocky IV (Dir. Sylvester Stallone, 1h30m, 1985)

Rocky IV is not a film about boxing. Or rather, more correctly, compared to the rest of the Rocky series, the fourth installment stands alone in that, rather than simply exploring male machismo, or, later, male vulnerability, Rocky IV has grander ideas. It is a film about peace, about understanding against the background of the Cold War, and appropriately enough, culminates on Christmas Day in a battle in he ring between the two most powerful nations on earth, represented by Stallone's everyman, pitted against Dolph Lundgren's nigh unstoppable machine-taught punching machine, Ivan Drago, in what remains (despite Stallone's revisionist cut released earlier this year), the emotional, narrative, and, apart from the first film, financal high point of the series.

Rocky IV is also undeniably the most underrated choice of the trio I've covered, when considering it as a Christmas film-it's only in the last few years, compared to the almost immediate concensus for Batman Returns and Gremlins, that Rocky IV has reached the hallow'd pantheon of accepted Christmas movie , and compared to the rest of this group, never really seems to have capitalised on this position. It is, however, undeniably a Christmas movie, not only in its setting-much of the latter half of the film takes place in an undeniably festive looking Russia (well, Wyoming)-or its message, of forgiveness and reconcilation at this time of year, in Rocky's speech to the Politburo, but in its entire message, of a man heading into the heart of his country's enemy, only to find reconciliation with the man who killed his friend, and realising that the regime he rages against is not so very different. It's practically the Christmas message. But with considerably more punching people in the face.

By 1985, Rocky as a character had come from well-meaning street tough falling in love with the local girl, suddenly gived a shot at the world champion (Rocky), to a true adversary for the enjoyably brusk (and clearly Ali-aping) Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) (Rocky II), eventually beating him, only to fall to the same arrogance that affected Creed, and having to build back to come back against Clubber Lang (a scene-stealing Mr T) in Rocky III. Stallone, meanwhile, despite Balboa being his most famous role, and struggling to find other success away from the boxer, had recently become as well known for the figure of John Rambo, a former soldier turned drifter, a fragile and troubled human to compare to the nigh-unstoppable Rocky Balboa-1985 would see both characters in action, with Rambo First Blood: Part II's exploits in the summer preceeding Rocky's colossal battle in the winter.

Rocky IV, thus, begins with an unexpected move, as the unmistable punch-the-air chug of "Eye of the the Tiger" kicks in, two boxing gloves appear on screen, and begin to slowly rotate to reveal the Stars and Stripes...against the Hammer and Sickle, before, at they collide in an explosion, we're transported back to Rocky's fight with Clubber Lang in the first of several montages. From here, the film quickly recounts Rocky's goodnatured spar with Apollo, setting up the difference between the two men, of Apollo's urge to get back into the ring, and Rocky's contentment with his current status as champion. We cut to Rocky's family life, and briefly, in perhaps the most bizarre sequence, Rocky gifts his brother, Paulie, a robot (something Stallone rather cowardly cut in 2021's Director's Cut), before launching into the introduction of the film's towering villain.

Ivan Drago is the best thing about this film. This is not to say Rocky IV is a film devoid of quality-indeed, raising its stakes to "The Cold War, but in a boxing ring" gives the two fights that Drago takes part in a colossal, nigh-titanic gravitas gives practically every performance a boost, an increase in magnitude-but Drago towers, head and shoulders (literally and figuratively) over the movie. His introduction is not merely that of a fighter, but of a nigh-unbeatable god, the manifestion of an entire ideology in titanic human form. Much of this has to do with Lundgren himself, in his almost astonishing economy of movement-there's something unsettling, something mechanical about the entire performance, as though Drago is not truly human, whilst his sparse dialogue, and cold sensibility only adds to this otherness to the boxer, with his wife, (Stallone's then real-life wife, Brigitte Nielsen) often speaking for him, alongside Koloff (Michael Pataki), his trainer.

But the genius of Drago as a character is how he is shot. For practically the entire film,  especially when he is fighting Stallone (a near-foot shorter), he towers over the camera, statuesque, colossal, and seemingly unstoppable, with cinematographer Bill Butler shooting him from below (and Stallone from above) in their denoument fight. Drago, though, is not merely for show, an empty dragon for Rocky to defeat. Thus, the film quicky changes gear, with the all-American Creed challenging the unproven Russian to an exhibition fight, with Rocky reluctantly training his friend. What follows, in brutal terms, is a wakeup call for Balboa, with Drago annoucing himself against an almost ridiculously over-the-top show of patriotism (featuring James Goddamn Brown singing "Living in America" whilst Creed dances as Uncle Sam), as a blast of Siberian wind, toppling, and killing in a brutal show of power, the hapless Creed. As Drago snarls "If he dies, he dies", so Rocky, having held back on throwing in the towel, is thrown into a pit of doubt and revenge, as he mourns his friend's loss.

It is here, thus, that the film dramatically changes tack; the film, undoubtedly, explores the crisis of male identity-we see Rocky struggle with his identity, done superbly via a montage of the previous films' action, building back to the moment of loss. Rocky is forced, in blunt sensibility, to deal with the battle between his life as a fighter, and his life as a father and husband, eventually, relucantly, shedding the mantle of champion, as he sets off into the unknown of Russia, leaving his wife and child behind, and, as Drago undergoes an astonishing battery of training, Rocky turns to far more primative methods in the run-down shack he has chosen. It is the film's plucky David, venturing into enemy territory with just his brother, his coach, and eventually his wife, vs the nigh godlike, utterly unstoppable machine of Golliath, that is not only Drago himself, but the entire USSR, ranged against the tiny figure of Rocky Balboa.

And then Rocky IV does something unexpected. In its previous incarnations, Rocky has felt like the underdog, yes, but he's never really felt like the outsider; his victories have been for him, his family, and his coaches rather than some greater populace. What Rocky IV does is show him changing hearts and mind with his pluckiness, his grit. At the start of the fight, he's booed, the camera towers over him, the USSR anthem blares into life, a wordless retort to the pomp of "Living in America". For the first time in his life, the boxing ring feels alien. Yet, round by round, Rocky wins the crowd over, still, by the time he finally fells Drago, who, himself has begun to fight for himself, rather than the party, the crowd are cheering him on.  His speech, bloodied and exhausted, as Drago is not that of a conquerer, but a man realising that, even outside the ring, the Russian people are not so very different, and that his battle with Drago has, in a sense, perhaps whether it's Stallone, or his avatar on screen making too much of his single fight or genuinely hitting home, defused the bloodlust of America and the USSR at going to war. Two men have fought each other to a standstill so that two nations didn't have to.

It's a curious message to take away from a movie about boxing, and yet it undoubtedly is the main message of Rocky IV-at its heart it is a film about understanding people you would daub enemy, about forgiveness and reconcilation. "I can change!" bellows Stallone, before pausing. The crowd that hated him at the start of the fight, at the start of this war between East and West on Christmas Day, is now cheering him. Even the very enemy incarnate (a barely disguised Gorbechev), applauds him. "And you can change. Everybody can change". Perhaps, in another reality, Rocky as a series ends here, before Stallone took him down the path of fallen hero. Perhaps it should have, with its hero having gone not just from nobody to World Champion, but from World Champion to sporting statesman, healing the divisions in the world.

Less than four years after Rocky IV premiered in Los Angles on 21st November 1985, the Berlin Wall would be torn down, the USSR would disintegrate, and Stallone would enter the wilderness years of the 1990s. But for now, he stands, bloody, but unbowed at the heart of perhaps his greatest outing, and certainly one of the greatest Christmas action movies of all time, as the bested Ivan Drago stumbles across the ring, and Rocky IV becomes not just a great film, but perhaps a perfect example of the Christmas message, delivered at the gloves of one of cinema's great everymen. What better moment, then than to wish you a Merry Christmas, a happy new year, and remember, a movie's for life, not just for Christmas!

Rating: Highly Recommended

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