1978 Directed by Norman Jewison
Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.
Símbolo de fuerza, FIST, P.Ě.S.T, 拳頭大風累, fist, fist - Stalone
52 Years in 52 Weeks 2019: Film #6
Nobody's 100%... Nobody.
Excellent historical drama with one of Stallone's more layered performances. This is pretty classy for a Joe Eszterhas script and it's the first confrontation between Sly and Dennehy, making this some kind of spiritual First Blood predecessor.
F.I.S.T. is a 1978 film directed by Norman Jewison from a script by Joe Eszterhas and the film's star Sylvester Stallone which is a thinly disguised account of the life of Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Stallone plays Hoffa-alike Johnny Kovak who, following a stand off with his employer over an unfair sacking, rises through the ranks of the fictionalised Federation of Inter-State Truckers union (F.I.S.T.), initially taking a defiant and just stand for his members rights before succumbing to underhand methods, corruption and an unsavoury association with the mob.
Much like 1976's Rocky - Stallone's breakthrough film just two years prior to this - F.I.S.T. spends the first half of its running time exploring the cliches of the poor…
Ciclo do caminhoneiro:
F.I.S.T, de Norman Jewison.
Convoy, de Sam Peckinpah.
They Drive by Night, de Raoul Walsh.
Over the Top, de Menahem Golan.
Duel, de Steven Spielberg.
F.I.S.T. is interesting. Much better paced and more compelling than Hoffa, for instance. I enjoyed the '30s period piece element more than the flash forward, but Stallone is a much more compelling screen presence as an older, more wizened Union leader in the '70s.
So this is fine, to good. But Melinda Dillon is completely wasted as a love interest that only has a modicum of an impact as a supportive wife at the end, and eventually you realize this perfectly okay movie is 2 and a half hours long. A good long movie is good. A bad long movie is bad. A perfectly fine long movie can start to wear on you, though.
Hot off the success of Rocky, Stallone seems certain he's making another Oscar winner. His ambition repeatedly gets the better of him in this pro-union epic, loosely and too reverentially based on the life of Jimmy Hoffa. Stallone can't act and his script is co-written with Joe Eszterhas, so F.I.S.T. seems fundamentally doomed. He also doesn't know how to write for women, which leaves Melinda Dillon (and the only other two ladies with speaking parts) with little to do except act coy before relenting and marrying the lunkhead.
Fortunately, Norman Jewison's direction is mostly on point and Laszlo Kovacs's cinematography gives this a polished, accomplished feel. Their efforts seem entirely at odds with Stallone. It's extraordinary watching him derail scenes that would've played better with almost any other actor.
F.I.S.T. is interesting. Much better paced and more compelling than Hoffa, for instance. I enjoyed the '30s period piece element more than the flash forward, but Stallone is a much more compelling screen presence as an older, more wizened Union leader in the '70s.
So this is fine, to good. But Melinda Dillon is completely wasted as a love interest that only has a modicum of an impact as a supportive wife at the end, and eventually you realize this perfectly okay movie is 2 and a half hours long. A good long movie is good. A bad long movie is bad. A perfectly fine long movie can start to wear on you, though.
D: Norman Jewison. Sylvester Stallone, Rod Steiger, Peter Boyle, Melinda Dillon, David Huffman, Tony Lo Bianco, Kevin Conway, Cassie Yates, Henry Wilcoxon, Brian Dennehy. Stallone’s one-dimensional performance prevents this well-produced epic about a Hoffa-like labor kingpin from sustaining a strong first half. Peter Boyle does well with a role inspired by former Teamster boss Dave Beck. Screenplay by Stallone and Joe Eszterhas. [PG]
Ciclo do caminhoneiro:
F.I.S.T, de Norman Jewison.
Convoy, de Sam Peckinpah.
They Drive by Night, de Raoul Walsh.
Over the Top, de Menahem Golan.
Duel, de Steven Spielberg.
The film gets better once we get past Stallone posturing, yelling, and stalking his wife-to-be. Unfortunately, by that time, half the movie is already gone.
The hard antilabor turn taken in my lifetime is highlighted by how large a percentage of labor has been occupied by three movies about Jimmy Hoffa: F.I.S.T., Once Upon a Time in America, and Hoffa. These movies also take up a large percentage of all of the movies about labor, significantly overlap with films about organized crime, and Once Upon a Time in America is only tangentially about labor at all-it just posits the ex-gangster James Woods as escaping and reemerging as a Jimmy Hoffa stand-in.
Therefore, a large proportion of the on-screen depiction of labor is devoted to more or less sympathetic portrayals of a conservative mobbed-up labor leader. On top of it all, this movie is written by…
We got anymore burying to do in the graveyard, they better get-out their shovels........cause we're through taking punches.
Eh, it was fine. This is not really a role Stallone was suited for. I don’t think he’s as bad as some reviews on here may have you believe but there are some emotional moments here and there that are perhaps a bit rough. Overall, this is a generally entertaining, if entirely missable, period drama focusing on the rise of the Federation of Interstate Truckers union, or FIST.
More than anything it’s interesting to see what Stallone did immediately after Rocky. A Godfather-ish “rags to riches with mafia ties” story.
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