Smith is superb, but this is now all-but forgotten and that should not have been the case for a film about Ali...

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2020)

A biopic about Muhammad Ali, possibly the greatest boxer of all-time, should not be as understated or practically forgotten as Michael Mann's 2001 picture is. It isn't as if "Ali" was some low-budget effort with an unsung team behind it. Directed by Michael Mann, who was a big name at the time following 1995's "Heat", and starring Will Smith as Ali. It took a lot of courage to take on this role, and Smith, in my opinion, is perfect. He's seen as a comedy and summer-blocker-buster star, with his career-defining roles in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Independence Day" and the "MIB" films. Here, Smith took on the most challenging role any actor could hope for, and he is triumphant. It is hard to picture a better performance, and any nay-sayers about him before this film was released were undoubtedly silenced.
The weakness of "Ali" and the reason why it is now so understated lies within a highly convoluted script and the fact that director Michael Mann appears to have become overwhelmed by the material. The directing is rather weak as in Mann appears to lose all focus in generating the excitement and drama and instead he shoots the film like it were a documentary. The boxing scenes are very well-done and the script is good in that it does well to grapple with so many events which took place between 1964 and 1974. We have everything from Ali's refusal to join the US Army when he was drafted, to his famous bout with George Forearm in Africa. But herein lies another problem; the film is obviously geared towards a viewer that has some grounding in the life of Ali, because otherwise you would be completely lost, especially when it comes to the political side of things. While this is a good film and well-rounded, it is far from the "Raging Bull" quality that it should have been, and is ultimately forgettable and probably not something you'd watch a second time.