I Play Rocky review: The inspiring true story of Sylvester Stallones breakthrough will have you cheering

Running time: 128 minutes.Rated PG-13 (strong language, brief sexual material, and smoking).

In theaters Nov.6.Fifty years ago, a small-budget movie about an underdog boxer from Philly, written by and starring a totally unknown 30-year-old New Yorker, became an unlikely triumph.Even its studio, United Artists, showed little faith in it.

“Rocky” got a measly $1 million budget and was denied a glamorous red-carpet premiere.A half-century later, “I Play Rocky,” “Green Book” director Peter Farrelly’s new movie about Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa-like battle to make and star in his passion project, has felt similarly underestimated since it was announced.Like Stallone, 27-year-old leading man Anthony Ippolito from Long Island has few credits to his name.Who is this guy? The trailer got mixed reactions in July, and “I Play Rocky,” which had an enthusiastic world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival Saturday night, seemed destined to end up a polite behind-the-scenes Hollywood true story, like “Hitchcock” with Anthony Hopkins.Well, it’s a whole lot better than that — stirring, inspiring, surprisingly hilarious and easy to love.

For the first time in a while comes along a biopic in which we don’t already know every beat and detail of what’s being depicted. And refreshingly, it’s not reverential or museumish, but created in the off-beat, tenacious, can-do spirit of “Rocky.”This movie is not more lazy conveyor-belt nostalgia in which we’re pacified by hearing old songs and seeing familiar faces.The audience actively roots for Sly.

 Although composer Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” theme isn’t heard for more than an hour into “I Play Rocky,” we get chills the entire runtime as if it’s playing on a loop.When producers Irwin Winkler (P.J.Byrne) and Bob Chartoff (Toby Kebbell) finally relent and let Stallone play the main role in the movie that he poured his heart into and wrote in just 3 ½ days, he migh...