Missed Greatness by Trying to Cover Too Much (8/10)

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2002)

[I saw this in the theater, YMMV]
I am in my early 30's and too young to know anything about Ali. All I really know is his Parkensen's like syndrome, the lighting of the Olympic torch, and that he was a great boxer. So I can't compare this movie to his real-life, only judge it as a movie. In addition, I have never seen Rocky (my Italian wife calls this a travesty), and the only boxing movie I can recall seeing is _Raging Bull_.
The opening sequence in this movie is one of the best I have ever seen. It lasts about 20 minutes and plays between a Sam Cooke concert, Ali's childhood, Ali's training, a pre-fight preparation routine, and Ali defeating an opponent in the ring for the heavyweight championship of the world. Almost all the themes of his character are represented in that sequence: sensuality and women; anger at oppression of blacks; determination and persistence in training; the pain of boxing; the glory of victory.
If Michael Mann could have continued this style through Ali's conversion to Islam, this would be a great movie. Instead the second quarter of the movie had me thinking "I've seen this before." The second quarter of the movie has already been completely covered by _Malcom X_, Spike Lee's movie, and Lee did it much better. I kept looking at the character playing Malcom X and wondering where Denzel Washington was.
The movie picks up again through the drama of Ali refusing the draft. The interesting thing is there seemed to be no greater principle at work than Ali wanting to be his own man, not ordered about by anyone else. Ali's struggle to continue fighting, to stay financially afloat, and to avoid jail give heart to this movie. One great scene is when, after Ali's title is taken away and Joe Louis wins it from a chump, Louis and Ali are riding in a car trying to figure out how to get a fight between them arainged.
The movie ends with "The Rumble in the Jungle." Ali means so much to the real people of Zaire. They chant his name and run along side him when he trains. Ali is pictured defeating malaria (punching mosquitoes with death masks on) and the army (punching tanks). Ali is a demi-god who can defeat all that is bad in their lives, or at least let them ignore it for a while.
Finally, I have to say this is some of the most best cinamatography I have seen in quite some time. The scenes of the boxing matches are not shot from a steady-cam from 20 yards away. It looks like there were cameras on the actor's bodies. It was amazing, the speed and disorientation of the punches as they flew on the screen.
A side note: I want LeVar Burton's agent. Burton gets maybe 45 seconds of screen time, and half of that was of a photograph, not live. And for all that he still got his name in the credits _before_ the film. Way to go Burton, can I borrow your agent?