Fighting to stay awake

Rating: 6/10 (6 January 2002)

This movie was ridiculously drawn out. Its as if in editing they put the movie on slow motion and then fell asleep. Which is what I was doing during most of the movie. I couldn't get past the fact that Ali was being played by none other than the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And they just had to throw in the real wife of "Big Willie Style" to help ruin what could have been a great documentary. Though Jon Voight and Mario Van Peebles were good. The plot was not only slow, but choppy and poorly constructed. And it was even tougher to follow with the lousy camera work. I wish someone could have gotten the crew a steady cam because the "intense" scenes were ruined by shaky hands. The climax actually did excite me though, because I was ready for the film to be over. And unlike the rest of the movie, it gave me what I wanted to see. It ended abruptly and I can't say I wasn't relieved. What it left me was the feeling that all the movie had was a bunch of music on top of a poorly told story and pangs of disappointment in director Michael Mann.