Ali Review
by Jonathan F. Richards (moviecritic AT prodigy DOT net)January 2nd, 2002
ALI
Rated R, 158 minutes
Directed by Michael Mann
WHERE, WHEN
Now playing at the UA South
For a significant portion of the last half of the 20th century, Muhammad Ali was arguably the most recognizable man on the planet. Now comes a motion picture with a talented and charismatic star (Will Smith, “Men in Black”), a virtuoso director (Michael Mann, “The Insider”), and an oversized canvas (more than two and a half hours), to tell his tale and reveal to us the man behind the public image. And it doesn’t.
Mann’s technical skills are abundant. He can stage a fight sequence that puts you in the ring, he can do wonderful things with camera and cutting. But when it comes to taking the raw material of an impressively bulked-up Will Smith, who looks like he might be able to drop Sonny Liston with a punch, and creating an insightful human drama, Mann simply doesn’t seem to have thought of it. We get events, but not the impetus behind them. We know less about the fights than we learned from the sports pages, if we were around at the time to read the sports pages, and those who weren’t are left to wonder what all the fuss was about.
“Ali” sketches the formative years of Cassius Clay with a simplistic opening credits montage, while completely skipping his rise as a boxer and his triumph at the Rome Olympics in 1960. The real action starts with the first Liston fight in ’64. Those not familiar with the event will have to ask friends to explain what a fearsome, invincible behemoth the sinister Liston seemed, what a skinny sacrificial lamb Clay appeared, and what that business was with Clay’s eyes. The second Liston fight is glossed over even more, with no mention of the skepticism (probably unfounded) that surrounded Liston’s inglorious first round crumple and the notorious “tornado punch”.
It’s that way all through the movie. We’re hurried from this to that without explanation, like tourists on a bus. For Ali’s conversion to Islam, we see him lurking at the back of a hall listening to Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles). Ali’s refusal of the draft is presented as more a matter of convenience than conviction. The extraordinary rope-a-dope strategy of the “Rumble in the Jungle” becomes endless rounds of his corner yelling “Get off the ropes!”, with no deeper insight into the thinking and the courage that inspired it.
We never get into the heart of any of it. The Muslims, his abandonment of his friend Malcolm and allegiance to the remote Elijah Muhammed, his wives, his womanizing (as far as the movie is concerned, he never womanized with a woman he didn’t marry), the extraordinary feat of his comeback after his years of excommunication from the ring. And the wit, and the intelligence, and the impact, and the supernova magnetism, none of it comes across on a scale that honors the man.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
