Rocky

 Choices, choices, choices.  What interesting choices were made here.

On the surface, this is a straightforward allegory.  The scrappy young protagonist, armed with nothing but the virtue traditional to every American movie of this sort--pluck, grit, spirit, heart, whatever mask it wears--is oppressed by the machine of wealth and business.  No matter what they take away from him, or how they try to keep him in his place, that virtue cannot be squelched, and ultimately, somehow, he triumphs.  The American Spirit cannot be defeated, and though tragedy and hardship are unavoidable, all is well.  The hero is rewarded with love, wealth, and victory.

Except for one choice, this would be every movie of that type, serviceable for an endorphin rush, but utterly transparent and unimaginative.

In every other movie of this sort, the villain, the oppressive symbol of an unjust and corrupt system, would be an old, rich, white man.  Why on earth was the choice made to cast a black man?  Was the intention to turn the trope on its head? Was the choice written into the script?  If so, that is the whole point of this movie.  It is not Rocky who carries the message, but Apollo.  The system is not the villain here, but the very idea of success and wealth.  As Rocky is here, Apollo once no doubt was.  He was the plucky underdog, oppressed by the system, equipped only with an unsquelchable spirit.  Pluck.  Grit.  Drive.  Will.  Determination.  Nothing could beat that out of him, no oppressive system, no unfair riggery of the game.  The only thing that could take his virtue was success itself, just as it inevitably will for his younger counterpart.