Entertaining biopic but is overlong and is unsure of itself when it tries to delve below the surface

Rating: Null/10 (2 October 2005)

By joining the young Cassius Clay as he first makes his mark on the world of boxing and finishing the film before a sentimental and unnecessary look at Ali struggling with his illness, Mann makes this a much better film than it could have been, even if he doesn't full off a great biopic. The plot follows him through his best years and highest profile troubles and is an entertaining look back at this chapter in this life but the focus is on the facts rather than anything really deeper. Like Ali himself, the film is at its best when it is floating, boxing and trash talking and in these moments it is great fun  but not because the film is anything special but because Ali was. However when the film has to delve deeper into him as a person, it seems less certain of itself and is surprisingly dull. Issues that require a sensitive touch fall flat and, although the film does show him in a bad light, it is mostly done reluctantly and sheepishly.
The running time is longer than necessary to accommodate this side of things and, because it doesn't work that well it does make the whole film feel longer than it should be. The fights and talking are where the show is though and it does this aspect really well. The fights are well directed and convincing, doing justice to the real things and they are fun to watch. In these scenes I was happy to have Mann as the director but I couldn't wonder but wonder if Spike Lee would have been a more interesting choice for the depth and review of the man as a person and on his cultural impact. Matching the film's strength in recreation, the cast is led by a couple of performances that are very good but really very good impersonations. Smith never makes Ali his own and never gets below the skin of the character. He is great in the ring and he trash talks really well but he is part of the problem when it comes to the other stuff. Voight does great work as Cosell; I barely recognised him and he has gotten the mannerisms and voice bang on. The support is very mixed but is mainly good. Foxx impresses in a minor role and I imagine it is this performance that won him the support in Mann's Collateral. The rest a re a strange mix with too many of them being recognisable from other films and undermining their characters  with such little time to make an impact, many of them are "that guy from" rather than being the person we need them to be. The limited pool of actors that Mann drew on also caused me some amusement; specifically it was amusing to see Hall go from being Baines in Malcolm X to being Elijah Muhammad (a promotion) or Esposito not shooting Malcolm X. Nobody is bad but I did think that the cast would have benefited from having fewer famous faces despite the fact that Silver, Wright, Williamson, Smith, Gaye, Michele, Morton, McGill and others were all fine (not sure about Van Peebles as Malcolm X or Williamson's Don King though).
Overall this is a good film but it is at its best when it is just recreating the magic of Ali and his skills as a fighter and entertainer. When it tries to go below the surface it falters and does occasionally drag. One thing worth noting is that the very things that the film does well is captured just as well in the (much shorter) documentary When We Were Kings, that covers the same sort of ground but uses the man himself.