The last time Sylvester Stallone tried to take on a real dramatic role, the results were… creatively successful. He put on 40 lbs for James Mangold’s “Copland” in 1997, but reviews were semi-mixed. Mangold insists even though Stallone really delivered best intentions, he had engendered ill will among certain audiences with his mindless action films. “When ‘Cop Land’ came out, a lot of daggers were out for Sly,” Mangold said in 2011. “He had made a bunch of shittier moves, he’s the first to admit, that weren’t aimed for the highest result each time out.”
Even though the role did earn him good will in the end, Stallone claimed at the time, the movie hurt his career — a bit of a head scratcher when you consider it’s probably his best work since the early “Rocky” movies.
Evidently, he wasn’t fully discouraged from serious roles. Seventeen years later (minus the neo-noir “Shade” which he only co-starred in) Stallone’s about to star in "Reach Me," a 2014 drama which we’ll see later this year (though admittedly, it appears to be more of an ensemble than starring vehicle). Directed by John Herzfeld ("2 Days in the Valley," "15 Minutes" with Robert De Niro and Edward Burns) the film has a pretty huge cast. It stars Stallone, Cary Elwes, Terry Crews, Thomas Jane, Tom Sizemore, Lauren Cohan, rapper Nelly, Kevin Connolly, Kyra Sedgwick, Kelsey Grammer, Ryan Kwanten and Tom Berenger.
The drama is about a group of people that all have a connection to a self-help book written by a reclusive former football coach. And it appears that Berenger is said coach.
The trailer looks… a little unfantastic, to put it nicely, and resembles “Crash” if it were a straight-to-video B Movie and not an Oscar winner (funny how that happened, right?). But maybe it’s your thing? The movie will hit cinemas on October 24 in the U.S.
Watch the trailer below and judge for yourself.