Duck and weave

Rating: 8/10 (8 November 2013)

In the USA, Mohammed Ali is still a divisive figure, even to people who probably were not even alive when his boxing career was in its decline.
To others outside the USA. Ali is universally acknowledged as a hero, someone who transcended his sport to become a well known personality.
Michael Mann takes up the challenge to try to tweak out the various facets of Ali and show someone who is not an easy subject to capture but his boxing of course makes the narrative easier.
The film ends with the Rumble in the Jungle when Ali beat Foreman.
We go through the period when he could not box because of his stance against Vietnam and of course his earlier rise to become champion of world heavyweight boxing. Then his alliance with the Nation of Islam.
Mann as expected does not go through a straight biopic. He elicits from Will Smith a great performance that was Oscar nominated. Jamie Foxx as Bundini Brown should had also got recognition and Jon Voight under heavy make up is unrecognisable and he got a best supporting Oscar nomination.
Mann took an auteur approach to his subject. Its narrative style was not too popular at the time of its release, mainly because everyone have their own ideas of what a Muhammad Ali should be like.
Mann provides enough flourish to let the audience have an insight of this legendary boxer.