Ali ««
R, 159m. 2001
Cast & Credits: Will Smith (Cassius Clay/Cassius X/Muhammad Ali), Jamie Foxx (Drew 'Bundini' Brown), Jon Voight (Howard Cosell), Mario Van Peebles (Malcolm X), Ron Silver (Angelo Dundee), Jeffrey Wright (Howard Bingham), Mykelti Williamson (Don King), Jada Pinkett Smith (Sonji), Nona M. Gaye (Belinda Ali), Michael Michele (Veronica Porche), Joe Morton (Chauncey Eskridge), Bruce McGill (Bradley), Paul Rodriguez (Dr. Ferdie Pacheco), Barry Shabaka Henley (Herbert Muhammad) Giancarlo Esposito (Cassius Clay, Sr.). Screenplay by Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson, Eric Roth & Michael Mann. Directed by Michael Mann.
The most entertaining moments in Ali are when the heavyweight champion of the world, played convincingly by Will Smith, rants and raves to reporters and sportscasters like Howard Cosell about how he’ll take his opponent down in the ring and how he plans to fight the draft.
Those memorable scenes, however, are filled with a surge of energy that’s unexpectedly brief. Those scenes are the ones I would replay over and over again should I rent Ali on digital video disc and forget about watching the film in its entirety; all of which add up to a curiously unexciting two and a half hours.
Ali, directed by Michael Mann (Heat - 1995) and adapted from a script that apparently needed the help of not just Mann but three other scriptwriters (Stephen J. Rivelle, Christopher Wilkinson and Eric Roth) is disjointed. The film as a whole never comes together and the fight sequences in particular are slow moving and spectacularly dull. The boxing matches from the Rocky films are more exciting, bloodthirsty and action packed.
Watching the film reminded me of director Richard Attenborough’s flawed bio-pic, Chaplin (1992), that featured Robert Downey Jr. in an unforgettable Oscar nominated performance but with one remarkable difference. Seeing Downey portray the silent film star, I got the impression what drove this agile British actor was his desire to make the world laugh through his movies.
I attempted to figure out what it was that made Muhammad Ali want to become the greatest boxer of all time. What did he want to prove? The film supplies no answers. What’s worse, Smith’s Ali is not someone we feel like looking up to as a hero. I didn’t feel sorry for him when he is forced, for example, to give up his boxing license for dodging the draft. The fact is he brought all those troubles down on himself.
The picture begins in 1964 with Ali’s victorious fight against Sonny Liston and ends with the boxer retaining his heavyweight title in the early 70s in a much, publicized bout against George Foreman in Zaire thanks to the marketing techniques of Don King (Mykelti Williamson).
I can tell the scriptwriters are playing the notes but not the music when telling Ali’s story that is full of ups and downs. The boxing matches are all intercut with subplots of Ali’s relationship with Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles) and the Nation of Islam as well as the athlete’s marital relationships with his wives and girlfriends. All of whom are given such a small amount of screen time that I never really got to know them.
Assassinations of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King occur throughout the film but not with great emotional impact and there’s a needlessly pointless conspiracy subplot that has the CIA doing surveillance on the boxer. Did the U.S. government really think Muhammad Ali was a threat to national security?
The only time the script lets off any steam or kinetic energy is when Smith utters the same lines the champ said in real life. I loved Ali’s rhyme about what it would be like if he battled Joe Frazier in the ring so much that I wanted to hear more.
“Who would have thought when they came to this fight, that they would witness the launching of a black satellite,” he says. Now that’s classic original stuff.
Some of the dialogue, especially the lines uttered by a completely unrecognizable Jon Voight (Pearl Harbor - 2001) as Cosell shows just how clever the sportscaster was in real life. It’s clear he had a great knack for dreaming up catchy opening phrases. And to think, this guy got a degree in law.
There is more, much more to what made Muhammad Ali tick than what we see on the big screen. The film, unfortunately, leaves only one lasting impression I am not so sure “The Greatest” wants to be remembered for.
The kind of impression Smith’s Ali projects in this film is the same impression I got after reading obituaries about NASCAR racer Dale Earnhardt. There’s a reason why Earnhardt earned the nickname, “The Intimidator.” It’s because every time some fellow driver cut him off on the track, Earnhardt would come after them as though it was some road rage incident.
What Ali, the movie, proves is that perhaps the one and only thing that made Muhammad Ali great was the fact he practically came through on his promises that he’d take his opponents down in the ring every time he shot his mouth off.
I am willing to bet that were it not for those victories, Muhammad Ali would be exactly what Howard Cosell said the boxer would be were it not for his televised interviews, “A mouth.”
©4/24/02
R, 159m. 2001
Cast & Credits: Will Smith (Cassius Clay/Cassius X/Muhammad Ali), Jamie Foxx (Drew 'Bundini' Brown), Jon Voight (Howard Cosell), Mario Van Peebles (Malcolm X), Ron Silver (Angelo Dundee), Jeffrey Wright (Howard Bingham), Mykelti Williamson (Don King), Jada Pinkett Smith (Sonji), Nona M. Gaye (Belinda Ali), Michael Michele (Veronica Porche), Joe Morton (Chauncey Eskridge), Bruce McGill (Bradley), Paul Rodriguez (Dr. Ferdie Pacheco), Barry Shabaka Henley (Herbert Muhammad) Giancarlo Esposito (Cassius Clay, Sr.). Screenplay by Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson, Eric Roth & Michael Mann. Directed by Michael Mann.
Those memorable scenes, however, are filled with a surge of energy that’s unexpectedly brief. Those scenes are the ones I would replay over and over again should I rent Ali on digital video disc and forget about watching the film in its entirety; all of which add up to a curiously unexciting two and a half hours.
Ali, directed by Michael Mann (Heat - 1995) and adapted from a script that apparently needed the help of not just Mann but three other scriptwriters (Stephen J. Rivelle, Christopher Wilkinson and Eric Roth) is disjointed. The film as a whole never comes together and the fight sequences in particular are slow moving and spectacularly dull. The boxing matches from the Rocky films are more exciting, bloodthirsty and action packed.
Watching the film reminded me of director Richard Attenborough’s flawed bio-pic, Chaplin (1992), that featured Robert Downey Jr. in an unforgettable Oscar nominated performance but with one remarkable difference. Seeing Downey portray the silent film star, I got the impression what drove this agile British actor was his desire to make the world laugh through his movies.
I attempted to figure out what it was that made Muhammad Ali want to become the greatest boxer of all time. What did he want to prove? The film supplies no answers. What’s worse, Smith’s Ali is not someone we feel like looking up to as a hero. I didn’t feel sorry for him when he is forced, for example, to give up his boxing license for dodging the draft. The fact is he brought all those troubles down on himself.
The picture begins in 1964 with Ali’s victorious fight against Sonny Liston and ends with the boxer retaining his heavyweight title in the early 70s in a much, publicized bout against George Foreman in Zaire thanks to the marketing techniques of Don King (Mykelti Williamson).
I can tell the scriptwriters are playing the notes but not the music when telling Ali’s story that is full of ups and downs. The boxing matches are all intercut with subplots of Ali’s relationship with Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles) and the Nation of Islam as well as the athlete’s marital relationships with his wives and girlfriends. All of whom are given such a small amount of screen time that I never really got to know them.
Assassinations of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King occur throughout the film but not with great emotional impact and there’s a needlessly pointless conspiracy subplot that has the CIA doing surveillance on the boxer. Did the U.S. government really think Muhammad Ali was a threat to national security?
The only time the script lets off any steam or kinetic energy is when Smith utters the same lines the champ said in real life. I loved Ali’s rhyme about what it would be like if he battled Joe Frazier in the ring so much that I wanted to hear more.
“Who would have thought when they came to this fight, that they would witness the launching of a black satellite,” he says. Now that’s classic original stuff.
Some of the dialogue, especially the lines uttered by a completely unrecognizable Jon Voight (Pearl Harbor - 2001) as Cosell shows just how clever the sportscaster was in real life. It’s clear he had a great knack for dreaming up catchy opening phrases. And to think, this guy got a degree in law.
There is more, much more to what made Muhammad Ali tick than what we see on the big screen. The film, unfortunately, leaves only one lasting impression I am not so sure “The Greatest” wants to be remembered for.
The kind of impression Smith’s Ali projects in this film is the same impression I got after reading obituaries about NASCAR racer Dale Earnhardt. There’s a reason why Earnhardt earned the nickname, “The Intimidator.” It’s because every time some fellow driver cut him off on the track, Earnhardt would come after them as though it was some road rage incident.
What Ali, the movie, proves is that perhaps the one and only thing that made Muhammad Ali great was the fact he practically came through on his promises that he’d take his opponents down in the ring every time he shot his mouth off.
I am willing to bet that were it not for those victories, Muhammad Ali would be exactly what Howard Cosell said the boxer would be were it not for his televised interviews, “A mouth.”
©4/24/02
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