Sylvester Stallone’s Worst Movie Is a ‘Kitchen-Sink Mess’ With a ‘Fancy Cast’
Sylvester Stallone‘s rise to fame is one of the most inspiring ones in the industry. The once-struggling actor had to sell his dog for a mere $40 to survive. When he wrote a story and tried pitching it, movie execs wanted to kick him to the curb for a bigger name.
Thanks to Stallone’s resilience and refusal to sell out, Rocky made him a household name. Today, Stallone is one of the most revered names in entertainment, but even he isn’t immune to the occasional flops. The actor’s worst movie is a “kitchen sink mess” with a “fancy cast.”
‘Reach Me’ features an impressive cast
Reach Me‘s premise involves a self-help book written by a mysterious author, as IMDb reports. The book inspires a group of people, including a former convict, a journalist and his editor, an actor, a hip-hop mogul, and an undercover police officer, to reevaluate their life choices and work toward bettering their lives.
The 2014 indie drama film was written and directed by John Herzfeld, who sourced inspiration from his memories of witnessing televangelist Reverend Ike and reading one of the bestselling self-help books, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill.
The movie starred Stallone as Gerald, Kyra Sedgwick, Thomas Jane, Lauren Cohan, Kelsey Grammer, Nelly, Danny Trejo, Danny Aiello, Terry Crews, David O’Hara, Omari Hardwick, and Tom Berenger. Herzfeld first approached Stallone about joining the cast. When the veteran actor agreed, others joined for minimum pay.
‘Reach Me’ has a 4% score on Rotten Tomatoes
While the cast tried their best to hold down the fort in Reach Me, not even their combined talents could save the movie. Reach Me premiered on November 21, 2014, and was met with criticism. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a mere 4% score, with many critics panning it.
Top Critic Robert Abele of the LA Times called Reach Me “a kitchen-sink mess with no discernible narrative, drive, or thematic resonance beyond uninspired batches of bad behavior, gunplay, eccentricity, and weak uplift.”
Another Rotten Tomatoes Top Critic, Tom Long of Detroit News, said, “Reach Me is the sort of movie where careers go to die.” Emily Estep of Film School Rejects said, “Reach Me takes a long list of cliches- some more offensive than others- and mixes them all together with a fancy cast to make a boring, pretentious film.” Estep advised viewers to “reach for an actual book instead.”
Reach Me isn’t the first Stallone movie to receive a terrible score. In 1983, Stallone directed and produced the sequel to Saturday Night Fever. The film did moderately well at the box office but was a bomb with critics. The movie currently holds a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Other Stallone movie flops include Escape Plan 2: Hades, Back Trace, Rhinestone, The Specialist, Get Carter, Driven, and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.
Sylvester Stallone’s best-rated movies
Stallone gained fame with his role in the Rocky movies playing the central character Rocky Balboa. After witnessing Chuck Wepner and Muhammad Ali go head-to-head for 15 rounds, Stallone went home and wrote Rocky in less than a week. United Artists offered him $350,000 for the rights, but he passed up the offer to play the character himself.
Rocky became the highest-grossing movie in 1976 and won an Oscar, making Stallone an overnight sensation. There have been six Rocky films since then. Stallone has also been attached to the Creed franchise, which involves his character Rocky.
He has also had success with The Expendables and Rambo franchises, had a role in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, and voiced King Shark in The Suicide Squad.
