WhatzUp

Ali
by Derek Neff

Everyone knows and loves Muhammad Ali, so much so that they forget how reviled he was by much of mainstream America back in the late 60s, mainly for his refusal to be inducted into the Army during the Vietnam War. Director Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider) gives us a decade in Ali’s controversial life, from his victory over Sonny Liston for the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World, to his troubled friendship with Malcolm X, to his conviction in 1967 for dodging the draft, to his remarkable bout with George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.

Will Smith delivers a brilliant performance as Ali: Smith conveys Ali’s trademark mannerisms while somehow avoiding parody. We all know Ali was arrogant, brash, witty, defiant and prone to rhyme; Smith also shows us a contemplative side to the man, and a spiritual side. Smith actually gives a performance that actually outshines the script he’s been given to perform. I remember watching him in Six Degrees of Separation six or seven years ago and thinking he was going to be one of the most important actors of his generation; perhaps with Ali he can truly begin to rise to his calling.

The screenplay, by Eric Roth and Michael Mann, is sometimes a mess. In some scenes we are given so much information in such a short amount of time it’s hard to absorb it all, while in others so much important information is glossed over we feel we must have dozed off for a few minutes and missed it. (Ali’s marriages in particular are almost completely ignored; I’m a little tired of biopics that hop from one major life event to another like so many points on a connect-the-dot puzzle, all the while ignoring or, worse, discounting the importance of the hero’s everyday domestic life.) Director Mann sometimes seems at a loss as to what to show and not to show: we get a five-minute performance by a Motown-era singer in one scene, and yet next to no discussion about Ali’s internal struggle over whether or not to accept the draft.

The movie’s strongest scenes unquestionably take place in the boxing ring. The boxing sequences are incredibly well-choreographed and vividly drawn; they avoid the close-up stylish butcher-shop violence of Raging Bull and instead focus on the fight as a grand-scale epic battle, fought not just by the two in the ring but all the people who work for them as well. The movie’s opening sequence in particular — Ali’s match against Liston — is so good it’s worth the cost of admission by itself. Ali never quite becomes real to me in this movie. A better movie to watch about Ali would be When We Were Kings, a documentary about the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire — but there’s more than enough here, especially in Smith’s performance, to recommend it.