Some memorable moments...

Rating: 4/10 (21 May 2002)

The odds were a million to one (or thereabouts) when challenger Cassius Clay climbed into the ring against heavyweight champion of the world Sonny Liston in 1964. Liston had wrested the title from Floyd Patterson in 60 seconds flat; the rematch lasted only moments longer. Clay had been floored by the Brit, Henry Cooper, en route to a tko win. (There's an old joke in boxing: If you wanted to take all of the British heavyweights in the world and lay them end to end from here to the moon... you probably could.) The oddsmakers had already measured Clay for a pine box by the night of the fight. So what does he do? He beats the daylights out of one of the most fearsome heavyweight champions of all time, using lateral movement (a study in perpetual motion, if ever there was one) and a piston-like left jab that cut the brutish champion and eventually began to buckle his knees. Clay even went so far as to taunt his opponent throughout the bout. It was one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight boxing history.
The foregoing information is nowhere to be gleaned in ALI. By omitting these facts, Michael Mann does his movie (and his audience) a great disservice. He actually undercuts the drama by failing to build suspense. On the plus side, his use of professional boxers in all of the major fight scenes is to be commended: this lends the film a verisimilitude lacking in most "boxing movies." The punch-for-punch recreation of some of the most memorable moments from some of the 20th century's greatest fights is likewise laudable. (The fidelity to the fisticuffs alone makes this a must-see for fight fans.) Certainly there are few scenes in the history of fight films as powerful as the slo-mo shot of "Sonny Liston" spitting out his mouthpiece after his drubbing at the hands of his brash challenger.
A bit of narration, here and there, could've added immeasurably to the fight scenes; could've given non-boxing fans unfamiliar with the history of The Game something tangible to hold on to. Nor would it have hurt to have actually shown the destruction of both Joe Frazier and Ken Norton by George "Thunderfist" Foreman. The significance would've been clear, even to a non-fan, of the four-round elimination of the only two men to have beaten Ali up to that time. (Frazier had battled Ali toe-to-toe for a total of 27 rounds, Norton 24, without so much as a handful of points separating them. Frazier fell in 2 brutal rounds to Foreman- losing his coveted heavyweight title in the process- and Norton, who'd broken Ali's jaw, went in two as well. How could anyone have expected Ali to beat Foreman and regain the title? The notion at that time was nothing less than preposterous!) (Footnote: Consider this, as well: Mike Tyson, hailed by many as the greatest thing since bottled milk, pulled out of a big payday with the geriatric George Foreman. Tyson understood something that a lot of people did not: that even an over-the-hill George Foreman still had the power to separate a champion from his title, as he later showed. Not that it mattered, as Tyson was kayoed by Buster Douglas, the man he opted to face in lieu of Foreman.)
There are moments of great beauty in this film, and any true boxing fan needs to see it (if only for the beautifully-choreographed fight scenes, which put to shame the lame-brained antics in the ROCKY movies), but anyone who doesn't follow The Sweet Science may find themselves outside looking in.