Ali Review
by Robin Clifford (robin AT reelingreviews DOT com)December 25th, 2001
"Ali"
In 1964 Mohammad Ali, then called Cassius Clay, turned the boxing world on its ear with his triumphant defeat of world heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. For the next 10 years Ali experienced victory and defeat, in and out of the ring, only to come back from his forced retirement to take the title away from George Foreman in the famous Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. Michael Mann helms the effort to bring this magnificent athlete's story to big screen starring Will Smith as "Ali."
There are too many problems with this ambitious biopic that keep it from attaining the "greatest" status that helmer/co writer Mann expects. There are the proverbial too many cooks with four other writers, besides Mann, involved in the story and screenplay and it plays like the director parceled out sections for writer to develop separately causing significant continuity and pacing problems. One glaring fault is a lengthy sidebar revolving around Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles). The Muslim leader was, indeed, a strong influence in Ali's conversion to Islam, but a full 15+ minutes of airtime is spent on telling the story of the revolutionary martyr, with little reference to Ali. If I want to see the life of Malcolm X I'll watch Spike Lee's "X." As it is, this extended diversion away from Ali's fascinating story is a major distraction.
Another annoying choice by Mann and company is to allow the music - albeit, very good covers of some great R&B tunes by the likes of Sam Cook and Marvin Gaye - to overwhelm the film, especially during the first third. Extended live performances, played very loud, tend to distract when they should blend in with the action (like Bobby Vincent's performance in Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas"). In "Ali" the songs obstruct the story and unbalance the pace of the film first third. Fortunately, the overt music becomes more subdued as the film plays out.
Acting is uniformly good with some sparkling moments from the players. Will Smith is uneven as Ali, though I think this is the material rather than the actor. He really shines during his public performances as the champ, giving a genuine tone to the bombastic chatter that made Ali so popular or, to some, notorious. Smith is, almost eerily, true to the form of the champion in the ring. The moves and variety of styles that Ali developed from his first meeting with Liston to the rope-a-dope victory against George Foreman in Zaire are near perfectly recreated by Smith - note that the actor did all of his own boxing in the film.
There is an incredible wealth of talent in the supporting performances. Jon Voight should garner award talk for his dead-on portrayal of sportscaster and Ali's friend, Howard Cosell. Because of the actor's Rod Steiger-style penchant for over acting lately (who can forget his snake hunter in "Anaconda"), his appearance on the screen, made up to resemble the lawyer-turned-sports-commentator, met with derisive laughter by some. Voight soon overcomes his past acting foibles and forges a character that looks, sounds and acts like Howard Cosell and makes you believe in the real friendship that grew between the two very different men. Ron Silver gives a subtler, yet equally solid, performance as Ali's longtime trainer Angelo Dundee. Silver makes you believe that he knows his craft and had the best interests in the champ in his heart. Jamie Foxx is also getting some note as the Al's troubled corner man Drew "Bundini" Brown. Mario Van Peebles overacts as Malcolm X while Mykelti Williamson has some fun as the flamboyant Don King. The rest of the large cast play people ranging from George Foreman (Charles Shufford) and Martin Luther King (LeVar Burton) to poetess Maya Angelou (Martha Edgerton) and Ali's dad (Giancarlo Esposito).
The story/screenplay, by Mann, Eric Roth, Gregory Allen Howard, Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, does a terrific job of handling the documented aspects of Ali's colorful life and career. From the legendary fight where 22 year old Cassius Clay wrested the world heavyweight champion title from Sonny Liston in 1964 to the incredible Rumble in the Jungle in Kinshasa, Zaire ten years later the filmmakers recreated the events that we remember from the champ's rise to international fame. Where the film loses steam is when the story delves into the private, unpublicized life of Mohammad Ali. No punches are pulled on telling about Ali's amorous side involving several marriages and infidelities, but this side of his life stilts the film's pace, too. Ali's personal reflections on his life - the rise to fame and fortune is abruptly halted when he decides to resist the draft with his famous statement, "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong" and is charged with draft evasion - are not handled as well as his public persona.
Techs for this big budget extravaganza meet the needs of such an epic storytelling. Emmanuel Lubezki captures the life of Ali on film with the same energy and verve as Mann has in his (sometimes uneven) direction. Makeup, by a team of artisans, help render the faces of the characters onto the actors so that, at times, your eye sees the people the players are depicting. Production and art direction teams do a fine job in capturing the trappings of the 10-year period being laid open to our scrutiny. The three-part story reaches its grandest point with the staging of events around the famous Rumble in the Jungle. Obviously, the filmmakers watched the terrific documentary, "When We Were Kings" (which I highly recommend) more than a few time, capturing that happening in a note perfect manner.
This public story of Muhammad Ali delves into the many sides of the boxer's life and his ways. His braggadocio as the heavyweight contender against Liston starts right off with his proclamation that he will "fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee." The man had the strength, athleticism and self-confidence to put up rather than shut up and sets the stage for the battles, in and out of the ring, that he will face in the future. Ali was a controversial figure for the decades of his boxing career and Mann, with Will Smith, does a competent job of opening his life during the turbulent decade depicted to those who don't really know that Mohammad Ali was, indeed, "The Greatest."
Mohammad Ali is, arguably, the most renowned person world wide, not just for his prodigious boxing feats like the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thriller in Manila with Joe Frazier, but for his humanitarian ideals, strong principles and dedication to his Muslim faith. It is difficult for a filmmaker, even one as capable as Michael Mann, to capture all of the nuances of such a great man's life, but "Ali" succeeds more than it fails. There are award-worthy performances, particularly Jon Voight as Howard Cosell, and notable techs. I give it a B+.
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