0:27

Welcome back to manhunting, in which Waypoint

0:29

and friends are working through the filmography of Michael

0:31

Mann and examining his themes of labor and craft,

0:33

capitalist oppression, and dudes

0:36

rocking. Today, as always, I'm

0:38

joined by Nextlander's Alex Navarro.

0:40

I'm back, thanks for having me. Our

0:44

other panelist, Dia La Sina, was unavailable

0:46

for this one and we miss having her on this

0:48

one and are thinking of her and her family. So

0:51

today we are talking about Michael

0:54

Mann's 2001 biopic Ali,

0:56

in which Will Smith portrays the legendary fighter

0:58

as a man whose life intersects with

1:01

and is shaped by the great sociopolitical

1:03

forces roiling the world throughout the

1:05

60s and 70s. And

1:08

I will say up front, this

1:10

is a movie I'd only seen once. I think this

1:12

might be the only Mann movie that I've only

1:14

seen once. And I remember at the time being sort of

1:17

mostly surprised that like, wow,

1:19

Michael Mann made a like

1:23

film about the racial

1:26

politics of the 60s, that he, you

1:28

know,

1:29

takes this detour away from like, procedural

1:33

films or crime films and makes,

1:36

in many ways, a

1:38

historic historical biopic,

1:41

but with a real focus

1:44

on the issues of race and class

1:47

and politics of

1:49

the time. And I think that probably

1:52

impressed me unduly. The

1:54

first time I saw it in the context

1:57

of just expectations I

1:59

had of his work.

1:59

at the time, revisiting

2:02

it here, and we were joking about this as we were

2:04

getting prepped for this.

2:07

This feels very much like a movie

2:09

of parts. In fact, in

2:11

some ways, you kind of look at the two halves

2:14

of Ali and see Michael

2:16

Mann basically covering two

2:19

other films that it seems like he just might really

2:21

like and might be

2:24

really informing, perhaps overly

2:26

much, his approach to

2:29

this material. I don't know, Alex. It's like

2:31

when I look at Ali, I see

2:33

Michael Mann very faithfully and respectfully

2:36

nodding

2:37

at Spike

2:39

Lee's 1992 Malcolm X and

2:42

the fighting documentary When We Were Kings.

2:45

Yeah. And when I saw Ali

2:48

the first time, I saw this movie in theaters in 2001 when

2:50

it came out,

2:52

and I had not seen

2:54

either of those things prior to

2:56

that.

2:58

And I was even not even a particularly well

3:00

versed in Michael Mann's filmography at this point, I'd seen

3:03

Heat and maybe like one or two other things, but that was

3:05

pretty much it.

3:06

And

3:07

I even then came away

3:10

from the theaters even you know, the tender age of

3:12

like, 1920 years old, where

3:14

I was not necessarily the most

3:16

forthright critic of films that I would go

3:18

to that bother to go to the theaters to see like, I

3:21

came out of this movie feeling like something was off. I

3:24

came out feeling like

3:26

something in here was just not co hearing

3:28

for me in a way that

3:30

really worked. And I actually

3:32

took me and a long time

3:34

because I have only maybe seen part of this movie

3:36

once since. And it is

3:38

really took this

3:40

watch for me to kind of articulate exactly

3:42

what it was that was bothering me back then.

3:45

And having seen When We Were Kings and having

3:48

seen Malcolm X, and having

3:50

seen also Michael Mann's other nod

3:52

to the 60s in in crime story.

3:55

I feel like the thing I finally landed

3:58

on is that has

4:00

in this movie is an earnest desire

4:02

to apply his kind of filmmaking texture

4:05

to these big momentous

4:08

scenes of newsreel footage, of

4:11

live-action footage, of his boxing matches,

4:14

of all this stuff that Michael Mann clearly saw when

4:16

it was happening, and give it the

4:18

flavor of his filmmaking.

4:20

The problem is that he never finds

4:24

anywhere in the story a way to apply

4:26

that stuff to the rest of the story

4:28

he has to tell around the edges that is not

4:30

just recreations of things he's really seen.

4:33

And ends up falling into these really,

4:35

for him especially,

4:38

kind of disappointing tropes of

4:40

biopics

4:41

to kind of fill out the story and the

4:44

drama of the story that isn't

4:46

just stuff that he knows because he can

4:48

just look at the archival footage and say, this is what

4:50

happened.

4:53

Yeah, it is a perplexing misfire

4:56

in some ways because if you

4:59

told me, I didn't know this film

5:01

existed,

5:02

and you told me that like, oh,

5:04

you know Michael Mann's next project is he's

5:06

working on a movie about Muhammad

5:09

Ali and sort of through the lens

5:11

of like his four greatest fights. Yeah.

5:14

I'd be like, yep, okay,

5:17

that's gonna be amazing. That's like perfect

5:19

match of like director

5:22

and material sounds awesome.

5:24

And yeah, there's Well,

5:27

especially coming off the insider. Like that's the thing

5:29

is that like his last movie being this really

5:32

great dramatic retelling of a thing that

5:34

does have a little bit of live footage to go along

5:36

with it.

5:37

But mostly is him creating a dramatic

5:39

story out of,

5:41

you know, the backroom dealings and the stuff that people

5:43

didn't see.

5:44

Like the way he tells that story,

5:47

he gets the drama out without

5:49

having to resort to too many,

5:51

you know, like true story tropes.

5:54

And here it just feels like I don't know if it was because

5:56

this original screenplay, which him

5:58

and another co writer rewrote.

5:59

or whatever, like just had too much, you

6:02

know, hacky shit in it, and they just never found a way to

6:04

kind of get it back

6:05

to what he wanted it, but like

6:07

it's just a really disappointing attempt

6:09

at turning that story into something cinematic.

6:12

Yeah, and to give

6:14

you... To

6:16

give you sort of the outline of what happens in this

6:18

film, for those who haven't seen it. Like,

6:22

I'm gonna tell you a lot of the stuff that happens in this movie.

6:25

I think one of the issues we're in return to is... This

6:28

is not a movie with an arc. And

6:31

so there's a lot of stuff that happens, and it

6:33

sounds like you can sort of create

6:35

a through line, but the film doesn't actually do

6:37

a great job of bringing one

6:40

out of the material. So

6:42

the film opens with

6:45

his sort of arrival, his

6:47

rapid ascent to the top

6:49

of boxing by taking

6:52

on Sonny Liston, a fight

6:55

for which he was regarded as a terrible

6:57

mismatch.

6:59

You know, Liston, a

7:01

renowned and terrifying

7:03

fighter who dominated his

7:05

age, and it covers the fact

7:07

that Ali, then known as Cassius

7:10

Clay, upset

7:12

him handily in

7:14

in about and quickly

7:16

emerged as the foremost boxer

7:20

of his age, and also

7:22

at the same moment was being

7:26

spiritually tutored by then Nation

7:28

of Islam Minister Malcolm X.

7:31

In his relationship with

7:33

the nation, Ali

7:36

quickly, like increasingly comes

7:38

under their sway and

7:40

their management and as the schism between

7:44

Malcolm X and

7:47

Elijah Muhammad

7:49

begins to like open up

7:51

into a full breach, Ali

7:54

chooses sides, he stays with

7:57

the nation.

7:58

After he chooses sides and and sort

8:00

of turns his back on Malcolm. We

8:02

see the end of that story with Malcolm X's assassination

8:05

in New York. Ali

8:09

is badly shaken by this. He

8:12

has a rematch with Sonny

8:14

Liston, wins

8:17

again and is now undisputed,

8:20

the greatest fighter of his age. And at this

8:22

moment, he is classified

8:24

eligible for the draft during

8:27

the Vietnam War.

8:29

And against

8:33

the advice of many of his advisors and over

8:35

the misgivings of many members

8:37

of the Nation of Islam, Muhammad Ali

8:39

announces that he will not be

8:42

subject to the draft. He refuses

8:44

to serve. And

8:48

he escalates matters by,

8:50

when asked by reporters about

8:53

it, he gives his infamous

8:56

and legendary response as to the

8:59

fundamental reason why he won't

9:01

go, which is that no Viet

9:04

Cong ever called him the N-word. And

9:07

this is a moment that is arrived

9:09

at entirely in his

9:11

head. I think maybe one of the through lines is that in

9:13

a lot of key moments in this, we get a brief,

9:16

very strange moments. We get a brief

9:19

interior monologue that comes and goes

9:22

for Ali. And

9:24

at this point,

9:26

all the forces of politics and

9:29

like

9:30

mainstream boxing conspire

9:33

to try and destroy his career. That

9:36

he is charged with a crime for refusing

9:42

to refusing the draft. And

9:46

all the boxing commissions across the United States further

9:50

strip him of his title and ban

9:52

him from future fights.

9:56

And at this moment with his fortunes

9:58

at their bleakest, the Nation of Islam, also kind

10:00

of abandons him as well and leave

10:02

him twisting in the wind as

10:05

well as substantially broke despite

10:09

having been his business manager for

10:11

years.

10:14

He goes through a long court case. He

10:18

also meets and marries his second

10:20

wife, a

10:22

fellow member of the nation.

10:27

He is sort of delivered by

10:30

the Supreme Court case that gives him conscientious

10:32

objectors status. And

10:35

he is booked for a fight against new

10:38

reigning champion Joe Frazier

10:42

and is demolished

10:44

in that fight as he is out of practice and

10:47

unready for the fight. And as he

10:49

is beginning to renew his challenge

10:52

against Frazier, Frazier himself is

10:55

defeated by a new upcoming

10:57

fighter, George Foreman. And this sets up

11:00

his culminating duel

11:02

Foreman at the Rumble in the Jungle

11:05

in Zaire in 1974.

11:06

He

11:09

goes there.

11:10

While he is over there,

11:13

he begins an affair with the one who will become his third

11:15

wife and also is forced

11:17

to sort of confront the tension between his ideals

11:20

as a member of the Nation of Islam

11:23

and also the fact that he

11:26

is a celebrity working in one of the most

11:28

morally compromised fields

11:31

in sports. And

11:34

so despite many of his beliefs,

11:36

he is also surrounded by enablers,

11:39

by con men. And

11:41

in fact, the Rumble in the Jungle is being underwritten

11:45

by the Mabuto dictatorship in

11:47

Zaire. And we get lots of like ominous

11:50

cross cuts to his CIA handlers

11:52

throughout this film and FBI

11:55

surveillance agents were keeping tabs

11:58

on Ali and all his friends.

12:01

And in this fight that he is, again,

12:03

sort of heavily favored

12:05

to lose, he

12:09

sort of alights upon the legendary

12:11

strategy, the rope dope that

12:13

enables him to allow Foreman to

12:15

effectively punch himself out of the fight. And

12:20

in probably what still rates as

12:22

one of the most brilliant boxing victories in

12:24

history, one of the true master strokes,

12:28

he defeats the odds, he

12:30

defeats this fighter

12:32

who was poised to supplant him.

12:34

And the film ends as

12:37

the heavens open up as they did in the

12:40

aftermath of that fight. And Ali

12:43

is captured at the end of the film, sort

12:45

of at the zenith of his career.

12:48

And for a lot of reasons, that film continues.

12:51

The rest of the story is not as uplifting as the

12:53

one that man chooses to terminate

12:55

here. But

12:58

one reason I stumble over that summary is

13:01

because none of these pieces really fit

13:03

together that well.

13:07

And I think

13:09

let's tackle the opening, honestly, Alex,

13:13

because

13:15

the opening is, I think, one of the first things

13:17

that signals that there's something a little

13:20

off here.

13:21

But to me, it was like interesting,

13:23

but also like, I don't get it.

13:26

And the more thing, but like, so it opens

13:29

on a Sam Cooke concert. Yes.

13:31

And a reenacted Sam Cooke

13:33

concert. And by the way, if Michael

13:36

Mann ever wants to shoot a

13:39

movie where he's reenacting great concerts from history,

13:42

I'm there for that. All this shit is great. Like he

13:44

does this repeatedly throughout the film is

13:46

like showcase musical

13:49

performances of the time. But yeah, it

13:51

opens on

13:53

footage from a

13:55

Sam Cooke concert intercut

13:58

with Ali. jogging

14:00

through the night, preparing for his bout

14:03

with with Liston. And

14:05

having and also having flashbacks

14:08

to his formative years in Kentucky. Yeah.

14:11

Well, so my issue here is not with the

14:14

choice to juxtapose this concert

14:16

against, you know, him doing his training. Like, I think

14:18

it's a nice little style exercise. Butts

14:21

man stretches legs a little bit with his, you know, wanting

14:23

to film a concert here.

14:25

And also, you know, gives a context at the time, you know, like,

14:27

this is the time when the story is taking place. And this

14:29

time when this story is taking place,

14:32

is after Cassius Clay has already become

14:34

a

14:35

fairly well known boxer, not a champion,

14:37

but he's you know, his boxing career is

14:39

already off and going. Now, a standard

14:42

biopic would chant would, at the very

14:44

least, spend the first 10 to 15 minutes

14:46

giving you some childhood, giving you some, you

14:48

know, context for what his family life was like, how did he

14:51

find boxing, all that kind of stuff.

14:53

Anytime Ollie's parents

14:56

appear or family appears in this thing, it

14:59

is purely

15:00

as background flavor.

15:02

Giancarlo Esposito plays his father,

15:05

and there is no context for who

15:07

this man is, or what role

15:09

he plays in Ollie's life

15:12

anywhere in the movie.

15:14

Other than a few glances and a few one off lines

15:16

where it seems like he's getting along famously

15:19

with with Ollie's trainer played

15:21

by Jamie Foxx.

15:23

Like, it just doesn't feel

15:26

like it has any real,

15:28

not only just no notion about like,

15:31

feeling it's important to show

15:33

any of that stuff, but also just no real

15:35

idea of how to make his family

15:38

life part of the connective tissue

15:40

of the story they want to tell. Yeah,

15:43

and I'm, and I also

15:45

feel like there's just so much here that like, you're

15:49

expected to make the connections, and I don't know

15:52

if it's because the film is doing a good job

15:54

visually making the connections, or

15:56

whether it is just because some of these things are

15:59

such like,

16:00

well-worn touchstones. For instance,

16:03

his father has a job painting

16:06

devotional art at churches

16:08

throughout the South.

16:11

And of course, a lot of his business

16:13

is white churches, and he is

16:15

painting blonde hair,

16:18

blue-eyed Jesuses on all these

16:20

churches. And you see a young

16:22

Ali sort of looking around at

16:26

his surroundings, sort of contemplating

16:30

the

16:32

white European faces and features being

16:35

portrayed in all this biblical art,

16:38

and then sort of looking around at the juxtaposition

16:40

between him and his father and the

16:42

white people that surround them. But

16:44

the thing is,

16:47

does this have resonance? Mostly because we're

16:50

all very familiar with

16:52

the notion that a lot of

16:55

Christian art in the United States and

16:57

Europe is fundamentally like

17:00

whitewashing the Holy Land in

17:02

religious history and has

17:04

like a white supremacist purpose

17:06

to it. Like is this film basically just

17:08

drafting off the scene in

17:11

Malcolm X, where he confronts

17:13

the prison chaplain and sort

17:15

of raises this exact question

17:18

of how come all the, you

17:20

know, saints and disciples

17:23

that we see in this art are

17:25

white and we know the Bible even

17:27

talks about the fact that there's indications

17:30

that like these were like

17:33

brown Semitic people.

17:36

But like, does

17:38

man get us there? Or is it just that the

17:41

film exists in the context where we're like, yeah, of course, of

17:43

course that's what this shot means. I

17:45

think that's what he means it to mean.

17:48

But like, it's like you said, like there is definitely

17:50

a degree of if you are not paying rapt attention

17:53

or you do not have this immediate context for

17:55

this kind of stuff, it just kind of feels like window dressing.

17:58

And it's similarly, I think. I think

18:00

it's kind of how the movie handles

18:03

his faith in general, which is to

18:05

say that

18:06

there's a lot

18:07

made about his relationship specifically with

18:09

the nation of Islam, which is fair. I mean,

18:11

that's a big part of what that chunk of his story

18:14

is. But

18:16

there's really not very much in there

18:18

about what Islam actually means

18:20

to Muhammad Ali outside of

18:23

the forces of the nation pushing

18:25

in, you know, pushing him in one direction or pulling

18:27

him away from another. And you

18:30

know, you get a little bit in the scenes with Malcolm,

18:32

who I think is very well played here by Mario

18:34

Van Peebles. Like obviously he's standing

18:36

in the shadow of Denzel Washington's performance, which is

18:39

a very tough one to do legitimately

18:41

one of the greatest biopic performances in any movie ever.

18:44

And he avails himself well here.

18:46

But there isn't a lot

18:48

for Malcolm X to do in this movie

18:51

outside of

18:52

be a sort of tragic figure

18:55

and instructive point for where Muhammad

18:57

Ali goes after his tragic death

19:00

after his assassination. You know, like that

19:02

is there's just not a lot

19:04

of meat to what how he's brought into

19:06

the faith, what Ali like how

19:09

he perceives, you know, Islam

19:11

as like the driving force in his

19:13

life, which it clearly is to some degree, like

19:16

it guides, you know, the women that he chooses

19:19

to pursue. It guides the way that

19:21

he you know, like his his

19:23

conscious beliefs about, you know, like the war

19:25

and all that kind of stuff.

19:27

But then there's also this wall up that's like,

19:29

never really breached as far as

19:31

like, where that really like

19:34

factors in with his life and his what

19:37

it means to him outside of just the influence

19:39

of the nation.

19:41

Yeah, it's I think part

19:44

of it is

19:47

funny there are there are moments where it's

19:52

like, Ali is too frustrating a figure in

19:54

some ways for men to fully wrestle with

19:56

him. Right. Because he is kind of

19:58

an unknowable person.

19:59

because so much of it like, you

20:02

know, he's a showman at heart, you know, and

20:04

like a lot of what he does in the public sphere is

20:07

to rile up his opponents and to get crowds

20:10

behind him.

20:11

But you would hope that a movie like this would be a little

20:13

bit more invested in trying to dig into what's under

20:15

that. And the

20:17

fact that I was thinking about this,

20:20

I think in some ways,

20:23

you could see the film as like one through

20:25

line I can see when I look at this film

20:27

is that... that

20:30

maybe the two most important victories

20:32

he wages,

20:34

our moment he achieves are

20:36

moments where he takes it all inside himself,

20:38

that all the key decisions are being

20:41

made internally without

20:43

the coterie advisors who surround him.

20:46

So like, it is there are a lot of people telling

20:48

him what he could do or what he should do when he faces

20:50

the draft board. Ultimately,

20:53

when he chooses to deny

20:55

the draft, that

20:57

is something that nobody around him really wanted

21:00

him to do. Everyone understood

21:02

that like this was a hugely risky play and

21:06

would have a lot of... Again, like...

21:08

I think

21:10

this is maybe something else that the... I think

21:12

any film would probably struggle to...

21:15

portray here.

21:19

The degree to which this guy was unpopular

21:21

at this time is hard to fathom now because,

21:23

you know, us growing up, this was an American

21:25

saint.

21:26

This is like... This

21:29

is an icon and all these

21:31

things he did were steps in his

21:33

greatness. The film

21:35

struggles to make

21:37

concrete for us, the degree to which

21:40

people hated him for this choice.

21:42

Yeah, and they don't really depict it is the thing. Like

21:44

there's a lot of conversation in the background happening

21:47

about, you know, like the

21:49

way things are going down. But

21:51

like the only time you see him surrounded

21:53

by crowds by and large, it's either

21:56

adoring fans in, you know, the inner city

21:58

or it is being surrounded by... by reporters

22:01

and it is usually like sometimes I'll ask a

22:03

pointed question and he'll give a glib answer

22:05

but like

22:06

you don't really see the impact of what he's

22:09

going through anywhere in this

22:11

movie outside of him having conversation with

22:13

his various wives and his handlers.

22:17

Yeah and and like

22:20

but the other thing is so like he

22:22

makes these two key decisions that

22:24

he keeps to himself which is like I am going

22:27

to fight the draft.

22:28

Right. And the other thing and this is weird because like

22:30

again what connects these two things I don't know like

22:33

these are two greatest opponents one is the US

22:35

government the other is George Foreman kind of a

22:37

weird thing but the other thing he does

22:39

that again nobody fully is prepared for

22:41

him to do is like how he figured out how he's going to fight

22:43

Foreman. None of his like

22:46

he none of his in that pivotal fight

22:48

he's out there alone carrying out a strategy

22:50

that he's never told anyone about everyone

22:53

is baffled by it

22:56

and the sort of through line I can put

22:58

on this is that outside of those

23:00

moments

23:02

all these kind of inexplicable figure

23:05

for the degree to which he lets

23:08

himself be

23:10

buffeted

23:11

by these forces around him and controlled

23:13

by these forces around him and it's very

23:15

disappointing in moments like there like

23:18

there is a I agree I think I think

23:21

like Maravent Peebles is excellent

23:23

in this and there's a moment that is just a gut punch

23:25

which is in

23:26

the in the wake of

23:29

the nation

23:31

sort of having

23:33

tried to lay claim to Ali

23:37

and keep him out of like

23:39

Malcolm's hands

23:41

they run into each other

23:44

you know as their as their two trips to

23:47

Africa sort of overlap and

23:51

for a minute Ali forgets the contacts

23:54

is really excited to see his old friend

23:57

and then like midway through here members oh wait

23:59

I'm not supposed to be fighting

23:59

I'm friends with this guy. The nation doesn't

24:02

want me to be friends with this guy. You and Elijah Muhammad

24:04

shouldn't quarrel. Yeah, and

24:06

just sort of turns his back on him. But

24:09

he's kind of a frustrating figure in those moments

24:11

because it's like,

24:14

it's not,

24:16

he is letting some important

24:18

choices be made for him.

24:20

But the thing that doesn't come through is like, why

24:22

does he let these decisions be made for him?

24:25

Why is he sort of

24:27

a rube when it comes to

24:29

the nation? And the

24:32

ways they manage or mismanage

24:35

him. It

24:37

feels like we never fully explore. Like,

24:39

why does this character who in some ways

24:41

is capable of these moments of being like, I'm

24:44

going to chart my own path, why

24:46

at these other moments is he so suggestible?

24:49

The film doesn't get us at a, what

24:52

is the essential nature of this man

24:55

that has these extremes? And it's possible

24:57

that the conclusion they came to, the

25:00

writers and man is that he is

25:02

simply a capricious individual. And

25:04

there is to a degree, as much

25:06

as you think you can know him,

25:08

you can't. Because in the end, he's going to do

25:11

what he wants to do in the moment

25:13

when he decides it's the right thing to do.

25:16

And I mean, that comes across a little

25:18

bit.

25:18

The problem is that

25:21

the story they are telling around

25:23

that personality does

25:25

not

25:25

really lend itself to

25:28

the kind of heroic sports story they

25:30

are trying to, basically

25:33

to build themselves toward.

25:35

And the lengths that they have to go to, to try and

25:37

make this big triumphant thing at the

25:39

end,

25:40

it just doesn't gel. Like,

25:42

it just doesn't fit together. It feels like,

25:45

well, Ali didn't tell anyone what he was

25:47

going to do. And that was a

25:49

weird move, but it worked. So hey,

25:52

everyone's excited. Like it just has this,

25:54

it doesn't land. It doesn't land

25:56

the way that it should.

25:58

No, it's funny. Because

26:01

it's like there's a number of lenses

26:04

that

26:04

man almost tries to put on him and just can't

26:07

commit to one. And you don't see like what he's

26:09

going for is for an effect of like here's a bunch

26:12

of ways of looking at Ollie.

26:14

But because he never really lights on one,

26:17

he never sort of tries to figure,

26:19

he never arrives on one that seems to have much

26:22

explanatory power for

26:25

the figure that he's making this film about. The

26:28

opening is trying out this notion of like Ollie

26:30

is one of the great artists of his generation. I

26:32

think that that opening gambit

26:34

is entirely, you

26:36

know, we have two things. One is

26:38

like Sam Cooke and the

26:40

cop car is driving by him at night on

26:42

his run. It is the, you know, we're

26:44

brought to mind of all the perils that surround like

26:47

black men, you know, at all points

26:50

in their life. Sam Cooke's, you know, eventual fate

26:52

is a testament to that. But

26:54

also there the other parallel being drawn is

26:59

he is both one of the great

27:01

like

27:02

black artists of this time

27:05

and he is one of the great black political figures of this

27:07

time that he like the film kind

27:09

of is positioning him as both. And

27:11

in a lot of ways, one of the few to make

27:13

it out of this era, one of the few

27:15

one of the few artistic geniuses

27:18

and prophets to survive

27:21

the 60s and 70s. There

27:23

are literally two assassinations in this movie of

27:25

figures of the of that stature and the Malcolm

27:27

X one, you know, they they give some weight

27:30

to. I feel very badly for

27:32

LeVar Burton

27:32

as Martin Luther King Jr. here, who

27:34

is in half a scene and

27:37

then dies and that his death

27:39

scene is really only

27:41

used to explain that the the

27:44

God, what is his name? Sean T. Asgridge.

27:47

Yes, Sean T. Asgridge is there and Joe

27:49

Morton was there. And so like they can

27:51

get a shot of Joe Morton standing over his body.

27:53

One of the most whiplash moments I'd forgotten this

27:55

part is he's he's he's filling in.

27:58

They give you a date and he's.

27:59

filling in, he's filling in,

28:02

uh, uh, Ali

28:04

on what's going on with his case. And

28:06

you're like, you get a date and you're like, why did I get a

28:08

date?

28:10

And then you, then you notice like, Hey, that's

28:12

a, that's a two story.

28:14

Motor court motel. And

28:16

that the fence railing is giving me bad

28:18

vibes. And then like a second later, it's

28:20

like, yep, this is the place. And

28:23

in this film, like it's, and the

28:25

way these are connected is his lawyer, uh,

28:28

a, a civil rights activist, uh,

28:30

and legendary figure, his own right was, was

28:32

there handling his case and

28:34

also, uh,

28:36

you know, Martin Luther King's case

28:38

at the same time, he's there for the assassination. Uh,

28:41

but there are moments where this film

28:44

edges up on the forest, gump

28:46

territory in terms of

28:49

Ali as just the guy who's always

28:51

there. And it does that handles

28:53

like that is, that is the, the connective issue

28:55

between every major civil rights event of

28:57

this era.

28:59

And in case, and then when that connective

29:01

tissue doesn't exist, man

29:04

will be like, I'm going to put some FBI

29:06

agents or CIA agents in the margins

29:08

of these scenes. Looking ominous. This

29:11

is the thing that drives me the most up

29:13

the wall about this movie

29:15

is that, and it's not because he's choosing

29:17

to do this. It's the way he's choosing to do this

29:19

because

29:20

yes, there is a really interesting

29:22

potential undercurrent story to be told

29:25

here.

29:25

About the way that American government forces

29:27

and the way that the government manipulated media

29:30

and manipulated media against figures

29:32

like Ali, who, you know, stood

29:34

in the way of their ultimate ends by,

29:36

you know, being a vocal opponent of the war,

29:38

you know, that they were engaged in and

29:41

the civil rights movement for that matter,

29:43

but they have no

29:46

understanding of how to

29:48

tie those scenes into

29:50

the actual story

29:52

that they are telling.

29:53

Like it every time the CIA

29:56

handler happens or they cut to the FBI

29:58

guys, you know, weren't

29:59

run and tape in a hotel room somewhere,

30:02

it feels completely disconnected

30:05

from what the story is

30:07

that they're actually trying to tell. And

30:10

it feels like they are free-floating pieces

30:13

of a much longer movie that

30:15

mostly got left on the cutting room floor. It's

30:17

bizarre.

30:19

It's like in that scene

30:22

where he's talking to Malcolm for what's gonna

30:24

be the last time.

30:25

Yeah.

30:26

We zoom in on

30:28

a hotel room window where

30:30

CIA observers are reporting

30:33

into their boss on what's going on. The

30:35

boss is on the phone

30:37

in an African palace in Zaire,

30:40

as it turns out.

30:42

And he gets off the phone, he goes down the hall

30:45

to oversee an execution of

30:47

Lumumba and his loyalists

30:50

as Mobutu takes power. And

30:53

it's like just bizarre. And

30:55

then they cut to Mobutu,

30:57

like walking into a room and just

30:59

being like, it's done.

31:00

And everyone's like, okay, so clearly this is

31:02

Mobutu coming to power. They're gonna find some way to

31:04

like tell these stories in parallel. But

31:07

no, we don't see Mobutu again until the

31:09

rumble in the jungle. And it's for a one scene

31:11

bit with the CIA

31:13

guy and General Idi Amin.

31:16

And they're just sitting around a table looking

31:19

sinister. That's it.

31:21

There is nothing else to that story.

31:24

And again, it's like,

31:26

this is a 2001 movie.

31:29

So like, I hope the audience has

31:31

their encyclopedia with

31:33

them or something to figure out why

31:35

these figures are like so important

31:37

or what this legacy

31:40

of intervention means. Cause

31:42

you just aren't going to get it from here. Like Mobutu

31:44

shown adjacent to an execution. Yeah,

31:46

seems bad. But like,

31:50

you don't, the thing that he

31:52

alludes to, doesn't fully sketch out is

31:55

like in the background

32:00

of this of this pan Africanism that

32:03

Ali is embracing,

32:06

you also have a

32:09

like

32:12

pan African establishment of dictatorships,

32:15

with the sponsorship of the CIA, to

32:18

both sabotage political development in

32:20

Africa, to like,

32:23

maintain access to

32:26

resources and like, socioeconomically,

32:29

like kneecap these countries, right?

32:31

And turn them into just like places

32:34

that can be like strip mined, effectively,

32:37

but you don't get that in this film. Well, and the

32:39

thing is, you can't you can't get that in the actual

32:42

story either. Because in the end,

32:45

as much as this movie wants to make

32:47

this this end bit as the

32:49

big triumph, the comeback,

32:51

the reclaiming of what was rightfully his in

32:54

you know, the title that was stripped of him during

32:56

the course of his, you know, his

32:58

years in the desert, shall we say, in

33:01

the boxing world.

33:03

And you know, even the documentary we when

33:06

we were kings doesn't fully

33:08

dig into this aspect either. But

33:10

they least like allude to it more and talk more

33:13

about it

33:13

is the fact that in the end, Ali agrees to

33:16

take $5 million from one of these dictatorships

33:18

from one of these, you know, these

33:20

these forces

33:22

that are working against the kind of Pan

33:24

African sort of you know, movement

33:26

that he wants to be a part of ostensibly.

33:29

And there is

33:32

no

33:32

lip service even paid to the idea

33:34

that there should be a conflict there

33:37

in his thinking in what he's doing. And maybe that's because

33:39

there wasn't one.

33:40

But that's a thing you can tell in that story

33:43

to complicate to like actually add texture

33:45

and complicate what we know

33:48

about

33:48

Muhammad Ali. But this movie has

33:50

neither the wherewithal nor seemingly

33:53

the coherence to make that happen.

33:55

Well, and what's weird is so those those

33:57

arguments are presented by Belinda. his

34:00

wife. Right. The second wife. And

34:03

she is sort of the chorus in a

34:05

lot of this being like, hey,

34:07

why

34:09

are you letting your shady

34:13

fucking manager, Herbert,

34:16

played by Barry Hanley,

34:19

a regular man collaborator.

34:24

But he is very much a

34:26

opportunistic like

34:29

businessman associated with the nation. And

34:33

Belinda points out that when he lost

34:35

his boxing license and

34:37

all this stuff, his

34:38

old manager Herbert was

34:41

nowhere to be found. Neither was the nation.

34:44

So she at one point begs him like,

34:46

hey, if you make your way back

34:48

into the upper echelons of boxing,

34:50

can you please surround yourself with different people? And

34:54

he doesn't. He is a complete,

34:56

you know, all Herbert has

34:58

to do show up and

35:00

all he makes him eat a little bit, a little bit of

35:02

crow and it's not feel bad, but that's about

35:04

it. Yeah. And then later

35:06

in in Zaire, Belinda sort of

35:09

points out that like, hey,

35:11

this is a wildly corrupt

35:13

dictatorship. We're

35:15

at Don King, who's

35:17

putting this together,

35:19

really brilliantly channeled by Michael

35:21

T. Williamson.

35:24

Like she points out that

35:26

this whole thing just stinks to high heaven. It

35:29

seems like one of the shadiest promotional bouts

35:32

that she can imagine. And his response is

35:36

what I am trying to do effectively.

35:38

He says, you

35:42

know, I need, I need

35:45

badasses to get this done effectively.

35:47

I need people who are going to

35:49

be shady, who are utterly without

35:52

shame, who are willing to like

35:54

take these deals because they're the only

35:57

ones who can get it done, which is an interesting

35:59

argument.

36:00

And again, could have been the framework

36:03

for a better film, right? Of

36:05

Ollie has these

36:08

grand visions and ambitions, but

36:10

also at the same time recognizes that

36:12

their intention with the fact that

36:14

however big his star is, he

36:17

is a boxer and has to deal

36:19

with the sorts of people that glam on the boxers and

36:22

everything, all the social progress he

36:24

seeks to make will be done through

36:27

the machinery of the boxing publicity

36:29

world.

36:32

But no, the film just kind of leaves it there where

36:34

it's like, yeah, believes it right on the table.

36:37

What do you want from him? I

36:39

mean, just hang out and let him go have his affair.

36:42

Stop being such a buzzkill. It's

36:44

problematic because it

36:46

like it does leave it on the table,

36:49

but it's also couching a lot of this stuff

36:51

in a

36:52

lot of really leaden dialogue that

36:54

is very heavy on the like biopic. Here's

36:57

your big like trailer moment kind of delivery

37:00

type stuff. There's

37:01

a line in there where she's like, why

37:03

is my Muslim husband being strung up

37:05

on a cross, you know? And it's just like, Jesus

37:08

fucking Christ with this with this writing. Like

37:10

it just it leaves the characters feeling

37:13

like bad caricatures. And it doesn't feel

37:15

like it's actually getting to the root of any of the

37:17

reality of like what these characters were thinking

37:19

and doing at the time. And it just makes it

37:21

feel very like like like filmic in a really dumb

37:23

way, not in a good or interesting

37:26

way.

37:27

Yeah, it's. I

37:34

think one of the things that I like in man's

37:36

philosophy is that he's

37:39

a guy of eclectic interests. If you look at

37:41

like the stuff he's doing, like you're like, where

37:43

did the insider come from? What's what's going on here? Just

37:45

like some some weird left and right turns. You read this article and was like,

37:47

fuck, this is making a good movie. Let's do it. Yeah.

37:51

With Ali, you see sort of the the dark side

37:53

of that, which is that he

37:55

can't figure out. He

37:58

never like sets to. an

38:00

angle of making this movie.

38:03

No. And that lack

38:05

of an angle, that lack of... So

38:08

just before we did this, I ended up watching... I

38:11

watched Malcolm X for the first time in like 20

38:13

years. And as I often

38:15

do, I

38:17

always forget how fun

38:20

Spike Lee's movies are. Yes,

38:22

even no matter how dark the subject matter

38:25

is that he's approaching, he always finds

38:27

a way to bring energy to what he is depicting.

38:30

But also a thing I forget

38:32

is that he

38:35

can be a stylistic chameleon.

38:38

He has his shots that he goes to, the

38:41

dolly shot. Yes, dolly's into the

38:43

iconic Spike Lee shot. Yeah, absolutely.

38:46

But when I go to Malcolm X,

38:48

in so many ways, he is making a

38:51

boilerplate

38:54

old school. We're talking old school, like 1930. I

38:56

watched

38:58

Newt Rockne All-American a few months

39:00

ago. As one does. Yeah,

39:02

as one does.

39:06

And that type of biopic,

39:08

Ali is using some of that framework, but

39:10

repurposing it to tell the life story of Malcolm

39:12

X. And you realize...

39:15

So partly is, I think

39:17

Spike is mimicking the style of

39:19

contemporary film for where the story is at.

39:22

When Malcolm is on the streets

39:24

of Boston and New York, it's a

39:27

1930s biopic slash

39:29

gangster film. Right. Later

39:32

on, it's more of a new wave character

39:34

study. But

39:36

the biopic template that

39:38

he sort of cleaves

39:40

to, it

39:42

solves a lot of problems. It's a bit didactic.

39:46

You have a lot of like, I'm going to show this character

39:48

speechify. I am going to

39:50

show this character have his big moments. I'm going to

39:52

give you some context for all that. Some characters

39:54

are going to speak a little uncomfortably in exposition,

39:57

but it

39:59

also manages

39:59

to convey a whole lot of information in context

40:03

without like burdening it too much. Man

40:05

is a little like you have those you have those clunkers

40:08

of lines in it. But then also

40:10

so much of the film seems like he like

40:12

he's like,

40:13

maybe if I just make this enough of a stylistic

40:16

collage,

40:17

something will emerge.

40:20

Yeah, like, okay, so a couple

40:22

things here. Like I agree with you 100% on Malcolm X.

40:24

He is definitely pulling from like that classic

40:27

framework.

40:28

The difference is that Lee I

40:30

feel like has a complete understanding

40:33

of who this character is, and how

40:35

to tell his story in

40:37

a way that any audience can

40:39

digest and understand. And

40:41

even a white audience that might have had deeply,

40:43

you

40:44

know, rotten feelings about Malcolm X and

40:46

his goodness during the two third dimension

40:49

was not on.

40:50

No, not 100 by no means. And

40:52

I think that that movie went a long way

40:55

to contextualizing who Malcolm

40:57

X was, what his importance was, but

40:59

also who he was as a person underneath what

41:01

everyone perceived him to be.

41:03

That is, in totality,

41:06

a complete look at the man and at least

41:08

as far as anyone has tried to portray

41:10

him up to this point.

41:12

In this movie, and

41:14

it's telling it what I'll get to another

41:16

point here in a second, but it's telling that we haven't really

41:19

talked about this much at all yet.

41:22

Man is relying very much on his

41:24

stylistic bag of tricks to give

41:27

flavor and texture to scenes that people

41:29

already know. And he is hoping and

41:32

praying

41:33

that Will Smith's magnetism

41:36

as Muhammad Ali will carry

41:38

the story forward

41:40

when the script does not have

41:42

the weight underneath it to float it along.

41:45

And

41:46

the problem is,

41:48

while Will Smith gives what I would call a

41:50

completely serviceable and solid

41:53

impression of

41:54

Muhammad Ali, even in the quieter moments,

41:56

I think he's better in those scenes

41:58

than a lot of the other actors.

41:59

are because there's just a little like he's trying

42:02

for something there in those scenes at least. But

42:05

he's never more electric than when he's just doing

42:08

a riff on something that you can see on

42:10

newsreel footage, when he is taking something

42:12

that is literally there for him to

42:14

look at and roll around and make into

42:16

something that he can utter and deliver.

42:19

But when other than that, there is

42:21

just not a lot else to this performance

42:24

to lock onto. I

42:26

remember a

42:28

few years after this Jamie Foxx made

42:30

Ray.

42:31

Yes. And I remember an interview that he

42:34

gave with Terry Grass on

42:36

Fresh Air, I think where he's talking about.

42:40

She was talking to him about like

42:43

being such a convincing Ray Charles

42:46

and he gets to this thing about like the difference

42:48

between doing an impression and channeling and

42:50

he's like he's

42:51

like if you do an impression, no matter how good

42:53

you are, no matter how much you mimic a person,

42:56

you're just still only doing an impression and

42:58

that's going to limit your range. That's going to limit

43:00

what you can do. He's like what I'm doing is channeling.

43:03

Like if

43:05

you look at that performance, you say like,

43:07

that's Ray. It's

43:10

because the impression might be inexact,

43:12

but if the feel of the characters

43:15

is right, you don't care how exact the impression

43:17

is. And Smith throughout

43:20

all of this, it

43:21

feels like he's the embodiment of an actor

43:24

who gets like

43:26

stuck doing an impression

43:28

and can't figure a way out of it. Maybe that's because

43:30

the material isn't there to like to pull

43:33

him out of it, but like I'm astonished

43:35

on the one hand at like

43:38

how well he can

43:40

deliver some of those like iconic moments

43:43

and like speeches and at the

43:45

same time how flat the performance

43:47

seems. Yeah. Throughout so much

43:49

of this.

43:50

And it's I think the scenes where

43:53

it really it was a challenge

43:56

for me to find stuff to like I honestly

43:58

and I I remembered. liking this performance

44:00

a little bit more. But like, watching this movie,

44:03

I feel like I did not.

44:05

I did not gel with it at all. And this one is is

44:07

Jon Voight's Howard Cosell.

44:09

Like, in the scenes

44:12

when they are just, you know, in the chair together doing

44:14

the television interview,

44:16

they are both hitting the notes like

44:18

they are representing the notes, they are playing along

44:21

to the music

44:23

that they have rehearsed over and over and

44:25

over again.

44:26

The second they get off camera, and they're trying

44:28

to, you know, deliver like what is the behind the scenes

44:30

relationship between these two characters.

44:34

Smith pulls back.

44:36

And Voight

44:37

just turns into Nate from heat,

44:39

like his voice, it just kind of gets into this

44:42

low gravel that maybe that is how

44:44

Cosell talked when he wasn't broadcasting.

44:46

But the delivery just feels completely

44:49

different. And not in a way that feels

44:51

natural. It feels like him getting into serious

44:53

acting mode in a really visible

44:56

way. And

44:57

those scenes just fall deeply

44:59

flat in a way that I didn't even remember until

45:01

I rewatched it.

45:03

It's got

45:05

I feel like

45:08

because that was another character that's hard to do. Like,

45:11

they're both characters who are so distinctive.

45:13

Yeah, when news for real footage

45:16

exists that it's tough to imagine like, okay,

45:18

why does this person sound like when they're not playing to

45:20

the camera. But

45:23

yeah, like those are

45:26

those are those are weird moments. And

45:29

the fact that the

45:31

part where he's just like, you know, they're they do the big television,

45:33

they're all boys with his like, all right, Ali,

45:35

you know, they're gonna come for you, right? And

45:38

it just it doesn't feel like the

45:40

conversation those two characters would have

45:42

had not in the way that they are doing it. No,

45:44

no. I

45:47

think the other the other thing that's missing

45:49

here though, is that

45:53

this movie has no fucking antagonist.

45:56

No, it's trying to create one and other

45:58

than the US government it cannot cut

45:59

and see if one. And the reason, and I think

46:02

one reason I can't

46:03

is because the film does not want

46:06

to deal with how mean

46:08

Muhammad Ali could be and how

46:11

much he played into colorism

46:14

when it came to making himself the hero

46:16

of some fights against some, like the fact

46:18

that Joe Frazier shows up in this film

46:21

and they're just buddies. And

46:24

it's like, hey man, like anything you can do for your family?

46:26

Like I know things are hard for you. And it's

46:28

like, and that

46:30

may have been how Joe Frazier felt before

46:33

what happened happened. That

46:36

is not how Joe Frazier ends up feeling about Muhammad

46:38

Ali after the next

46:40

five years of water go under the bridge. And

46:43

it's because like,

46:45

you know, people who follow the fights back

46:47

then will tell you like there were times Muhammad

46:49

Ali was a really hard guy to like because

46:53

like Joe Frazier was a likable fighter

46:55

in a lot of ways and Ali

46:57

made him a joke.

46:58

And like we see allusions to

47:00

it with the fact that like, you

47:03

know, they play up the fact that he called Sunilis

47:05

a big dumb bear.

47:08

It was not the only comparisons he drew

47:11

when he was like building

47:13

up heat behind a fight. And

47:16

so like

47:17

some of what you're dealing with here is

47:19

that as likable as this guy could be, also

47:22

this dude

47:24

knifed a lot of the best black athletes

47:28

of his generation as well, in

47:31

part to like work the crowd and win

47:33

favor, you know, in the media

47:36

fight before the fight.

47:38

And like you can attribute some of that to just the nature

47:40

of competitive boxing and the way that it's sort

47:42

of like swallowed personalities and

47:44

you know, definitely like lifted up people

47:47

who were the most vocal and the most personable,

47:49

but at the same time, yeah, like it just,

47:51

the movie has no real sense

47:54

of why those dynamics

47:56

existed between him and those other boxers.

47:59

You know, like Sonny Liston is basically

48:02

just a cranky asshole who fucking, you

48:04

know, apparently cheats at one point during his match,

48:06

which I looked that up. And I think that's,

48:08

it's somewhat contested as to what actually happened there. Wait,

48:10

wait, what's the bit that?

48:12

Well, there's the bit like where he stings his eyes, remember,

48:14

and like he's talking about like, you know, I can't see, I

48:16

can't see anything during the fight. And

48:19

the movie basically says,

48:21

like Sonny Liston whispers to his eyes like, put

48:23

him on the gloves, put him on the gloves. You know, like basically

48:25

saying whatever the stuff you're using for my cut, just put it

48:27

on the gloves. But I don't

48:29

think that's ever really been established as a hundred

48:31

percent what happened. Like there's some illusions that

48:33

like maybe the trainer accidentally smeared some

48:35

on his glove or something like that. But the movie

48:38

is just like, nope,

48:39

he's a guy who will fucking tell his

48:41

trainer to put,

48:42

you know, some kind of salve on his gloves so

48:44

that, you know, he can get an edge in the fight. And

48:47

I don't, look, I don't know that much about Sonny Liston,

48:49

but that felt like a pretty unfair, like,

48:51

you know, way to sort of just like dump

48:53

that character.

48:55

Yeah. And I think the other thing is,

49:02

the thing you get, the thing that gets

49:04

lost here is

49:05

they're all legendary fighters. Yeah.

49:07

And here they're speed bumps. Like the thing

49:10

you, like again, unless you know

49:12

something about Sonny Liston, you

49:14

do not realize that like,

49:16

oh, you know, if this guy gets a clean shot at you, you'll

49:18

just be dead. You'll be done. Yeah.

49:22

And so like, how do you, how do you plan

49:24

out about against a guy who, if

49:27

he gets one or two of his like signature,

49:29

like punches in on you, that's the

49:32

ball game. Like there is not a, there is not a boxer

49:34

alive who's been able to like stand there and like trade,

49:36

trade blows with this guy.

49:38

That's missing here. Same

49:40

with, like the weird thing is watching this

49:43

after watching when we were Kings, when we were Kings,

49:47

problematic documentary in a lot

49:49

of ways, like this thing, like.

49:52

Like speaking of Spike Lee, boy, they really kind

49:54

of just shove him to the side of that thing just so they can

49:56

talk to George Plimpton and Norman Mailer. Where?

49:59

We were taking turns just one up each

50:02

other on like both

50:04

being full of shit. Yeah. Um,

50:07

and also like

50:09

exoticizing every aspect

50:12

of this. So much. And then the, then the documentary

50:14

is like, yeah. Uh, you know

50:17

the part where Norm, where George Plimpton is like

50:19

a witch doctor told me that, uh, a succubus

50:22

was going to put the trembling hand on

50:24

Foreman and we, we get intercut

50:27

with that, uh, a woman

50:29

performing at the, you know,

50:31

during sound checks for the, for the concerts

50:33

that attend this thing. And they just use

50:35

this one clip of her, uh, like

50:38

over and over again. Yeah. Like

50:39

it's a, like it's a great documentary, but

50:42

like there's an issue of perspective in

50:44

that story, but, but

50:47

the thing, and this is the other thing, there's some things that

50:49

like as good as man is

50:51

you just can't do

50:54

better than some of the like live documentary

50:56

footage. No, when they reenact their

50:59

George Foreman hitting a heavy bag, you

51:01

know what that's still less impressive than

51:03

the documentary footage of George Foreman hitting

51:05

a heavy bag and seeing that thing

51:08

billow out like a flag in the wind.

51:10

Yeah. Just like, just a straight

51:13

up dent in the center of that thing. And

51:15

it is, yeah, it's, it's

51:17

captivating and it's also kind of baffling

51:20

that like man

51:23

chooses to

51:24

discard some of the stuff that actually

51:28

contextualizes why Foreman wasn't

51:30

the crowd favorite, why he wasn't getting

51:33

the sort of, you know, the response that Ali was,

51:35

you know, there wasn't George Foreman, but my,

51:38

it was, it was all Ali boy. And the reason for

51:40

that, by the way, I think they also misspelled

51:42

and all the graffiti in this movie, which is a little vexing,

51:45

but there's

51:47

a whole thing of like,

51:49

most of the people in Zaire did not know that George

51:51

Foreman was black.

51:52

They assumed he was a white champion.

51:54

And then when he did get there, he brought a German shepherd

51:57

with him, who was his dog, which you know, I

51:59

did in

51:59

out of context, you think, okay, sure, a guy brought his

52:02

dog with him, whatever. But in Zaire, it's

52:04

a big deal, because the Belgians use

52:06

German shepherds as police dogs during

52:08

the most brutal times of the occupation

52:11

there.

52:11

And so there was this immediate

52:14

disconnect and kind of offense taken by

52:16

the people of Zaire,

52:17

when he arrived.

52:19

And the movie could use that stuff

52:21

to kind of flavor text why,

52:24

you know, George Foreman is not really getting

52:26

the crowd response and why Ali is able to capitalize

52:28

on that.

52:29

But it just doesn't. It just doesn't treat him

52:32

with even the amount of respect necessary to explain

52:34

why he's the villain of their story. No,

52:36

and the funny thing too, is I remember in, you know,

52:40

again, the theme of like, sometimes Ali

52:42

is less likable guy in some of these

52:44

fights. You get those clips in when

52:46

we were kings of

52:48

George Foreman is

52:50

funny, but he uses the fact he doesn't talk

52:52

as a source of humor. He is

52:55

he leaves very he's very brusque, like

52:57

very short to the point, but like his lines

52:59

can be funny.

53:00

And also, there's just a moment where he talks about

53:03

I just don't want people to be like,

53:04

saying like George Kill,

53:07

that's not what I'm about. He's he's got

53:09

a little bit like the flower child in

53:12

him, where he's like, that's not what he's

53:14

a fighter, but he's not like, bloodthirsty

53:17

for and he doesn't like that he's already a little off put

53:19

by the bloodthirstiness surrounding

53:22

this particular bout. He's a little

53:24

outsourced by it, whereas Ali

53:26

fully leans into it.

53:28

And we get the scene of him like,

53:30

you know, again, just channeling parts of this documentary,

53:33

which uses tons of B roll of him, like jogging

53:35

the streets of of

53:38

the city and like being surrounded by cheering

53:40

children and such and hearing

53:42

that chant. And here's given like,

53:45

really heavy handed musical overlay. And

53:47

like this is his awakening to his

53:49

life's purpose. But it's like, is it

53:52

like is

53:54

like what's being awakened here?

53:56

It's it's not clear. It's

53:58

It's kind of frustrating,

54:01

and I think it suffers from the fact that

54:04

in all these fights, it's just kind of

54:06

like, how's he going to win this one? And at no point

54:09

is he

54:10

appropriately matched with like,

54:13

here is an antagonist. This movie desperately

54:16

needs

54:18

a, like, to

54:20

his, to

54:23

his, like,

54:24

Vincent Hanna, he desperately needs

54:27

Neil McCauley.

54:29

And I think it's just none here.

54:30

There's none here. And I just think I'm part of the

54:33

problem is there just isn't that person, like,

54:35

none of these fighters are people that you can point

54:37

to and

54:38

say like, well, that guy was a piece of shit.

54:40

So of course I want to see Ali, you know, beat him.

54:43

Like that was not the nature of his

54:46

rise of his, you know, his being stripped

54:48

of the title and his comeback.

54:50

And

54:51

when it tries to gesture at other villains,

54:53

the nation of Islam and their influence, the

54:56

US government and the way they are trying to control

54:58

him, you know, Don

55:00

King, who is

55:01

really just kind of there really

55:04

gets admonished once and otherwise is not

55:06

really a big factor in the storytelling

55:09

here.

55:10

Like it just can't seem to commit

55:12

to which one of those it

55:14

wants to make the central point. I

55:17

think the closest it gets is the, you know, the

55:19

sort of tense

55:20

off and on again relationship with the nation of Islam,

55:23

but even there, once he kind of gets back

55:25

into the fold, they don't really talk about

55:27

it that much again. Well, and then he's

55:29

like,

55:30

so the thing they introduced late is

55:32

he meets his, he makes it meets his third wife

55:36

while like in Zaire. Yeah, in Zaire

55:38

waiting for this fight to go off.

55:40

And then in the big confrontation with,

55:44

with Belinda,

55:46

like we get the

55:49

moment where she's like, I will tolerate all

55:51

the casual infidelities, but

55:53

you are humiliating me with this, this woman

55:55

you've taken up with, uh, while we're here.

55:58

And it's like,

55:59

wait, when did that happen? Also,

56:02

when did the whole like, devout,

56:05

you know, member of the nation

56:08

thing like, where did that go? Like we saw So

56:10

what were the infidelities? We didn't get to see

56:12

any of that stuff. It all happened off screen. We see

56:14

a huge fucking deal of like,

56:17

how things with

56:19

Sanji, played by

56:21

Jay Pinkett Smith.

56:23

We see how that falls apart because she's

56:26

simply not in a modest enough Muslim

56:28

for him. And like, she doesn't like,

56:31

uphold the standard he wants to project

56:33

as a like, fairly new

56:35

convert to the nation.

56:38

And it's like, cool, that's it. Okay, that's a big part of

56:40

his character. His second wife like does fit

56:42

that mold. Like this is someone that like does

56:44

sort of agree with the values that he wants to live

56:47

his life by. And hey,

56:49

people change over the years. Clearly he did

56:51

as well. But

56:53

you're just sort of sitting there being like, so

56:55

so way he's having tons of casual affairs. And

56:58

like, so the

57:01

the whole conflict from the first from the

57:03

first act, that's just kind of like done now. Yeah,

57:06

and that nation of Islam stuff doesn't really matter.

57:08

Yeah.

57:09

And I look, if I was if

57:11

I was Belinda, and I was watching this portrayal,

57:14

I would be super fucking mad because

57:16

one, it you know, it doesn't

57:18

resolve itself at all. Like there's no,

57:21

there's no sense of her leaving even. Like

57:23

it is just throw through all the one that fight.

57:26

Yeah, her and the woman that he is

57:28

now taking up with are both cheering

57:30

for him during the course of that fight. And I'm sure

57:32

that's, you know, rooted in some kind of

57:34

history. But like, the way it's portrayed

57:37

here is these women,

57:39

Ali means so much to them that

57:41

it doesn't matter that there is this, you know,

57:43

infidelity that there is this breach of trust

57:46

between at least Belinda and him. Like,

57:49

she just wants to make sure he comes out okay.

57:51

And it's like, I can't fathom that

57:54

really being what's going through her head in that

57:56

moment, there has to be more conflict there

57:59

than just a simple

58:01

like, I want my husband to win

58:03

no matter what.

58:04

Yeah. And it just it

58:06

can't. And I think part of it

58:08

is this this film. This

58:13

film is so admiring of Ali

58:16

that it can't bring it something like the same way

58:18

it evades the fact

58:21

that his relationship with

58:23

his rivals was often kind of toxic

58:25

and awful. It also can't

58:27

quite face up to the fact that like,

58:30

like, like a lot of, you know, capital

58:33

G great men, this is

58:35

a guy whose home life was a mess and

58:37

full of contradictions. And

58:39

all we get is the other

58:42

part is there's so many moments where

58:44

like, something needs to land. And

58:46

unfortunately, because

58:49

the limitations of this Will Smith performance,

58:52

he becomes like Ali just seems callow

58:55

in so many places that happy

58:57

horse shit he spins Veronica

59:00

when they're talking later is he's basically

59:02

trying to be like, yeah, we're gonna have a fair but it's cool.

59:05

Don't worry about it.

59:07

You know, the whole like,

59:09

man, I just want to be the I'm

59:11

a very loving person. I just you know, it makes me the

59:13

best and most loving husband ever

59:15

but also the worst.

59:17

And in that moment,

59:20

you're like, am I supposed to take this guy seriously? Yeah,

59:22

like, am I supposed to? Wow, what a great love

59:25

story this is. Like, this is this is lame

59:27

shit. Yeah. And

59:30

again, I think it's extremely illustrative of

59:32

the non committal way

59:34

that they the whole film approaches how

59:37

they want to present Muhammad Ali.

59:40

It is a is

59:42

a film that feels simultaneously

59:44

adoring

59:44

of him and also afraid

59:47

to actually touch

59:49

any of the more pain points about

59:52

like who he was as a person,

59:54

beyond the stuff that they can kind of,

59:57

you know, they can kind of

59:58

tie together with external factors

1:00:01

like the nation

1:00:02

and the US government and

1:00:05

the way in which his

1:00:08

fall and re-rise in boxing.

1:00:11

All that stuff

1:00:13

is the – those are the dark

1:00:15

moments that they choose to fixate on because anything

1:00:18

else would require a greater understanding of

1:00:20

the man and a more

1:00:21

thoughtful and more willingness

1:00:24

to show the warts of someone

1:00:27

that is seen as so great.

1:00:29

And I have no

1:00:31

disagreement with the idea that Muhammad Ali was

1:00:33

a great figure and a great man and an incredibly

1:00:36

important person for the civil rights movement.

1:00:39

I just think that his story deserves something

1:00:42

more

1:00:43

willing to actually engage with who

1:00:45

he was as a person than what man is willing to do

1:00:47

here. Honest to God, the entire time I was watching

1:00:49

it, especially after watching When We Were Kings, I was like, this

1:00:52

should have been Spike Lee's movie. Not

1:00:55

that I want to box him into the idea of just doing

1:00:57

biopics of prominent black figures, but

1:01:01

I could see him at least

1:01:04

being willing to engage with the aspects

1:01:06

of his character that are

1:01:08

not the most rosy and not

1:01:10

the most showy.

1:01:13

Yeah, and I think it

1:01:15

is in part –

1:01:16

to me it also feels like

1:01:19

there

1:01:19

are so many places in this movie where

1:01:23

it almost feels like you can see –

1:01:26

like if the film had footnotes,

1:01:29

like man would just have a

1:01:31

C,

1:01:32

Malcolm X, 1992, D, Spike Lee. Because

1:01:36

there are just parts where he's like, you know what, I'm

1:01:38

not going into the story because the

1:01:41

definitive version of that on film already

1:01:43

exists, so I'm just going to set

1:01:46

that aside, which is very understandable.

1:01:50

And obviously the

1:01:53

definitive film was

1:01:56

made on that front, but

1:01:58

at the same time it means

1:01:59

that the

1:02:02

the Nation of Islam stuff just kind

1:02:04

of kind of ends up being a damn squib and

1:02:08

and kind of kind of forgotten about

1:02:11

and instead like you know Elijah

1:02:13

Muhammad becomes just yet another kind of charlatan

1:02:15

that surrounds Ali as

1:02:17

as kind of does throughout his career.

1:02:20

The other thing

1:02:25

there's something

1:02:27

that man does repeatedly in this film

1:02:30

so the soundtrack is great.

1:02:33

The license soundtrack is great. Yeah.

1:02:35

The score I have some issues

1:02:37

and there's a move that man makes repeatedly

1:02:39

and every single time it drives it just it

1:02:41

kills it for me.

1:02:44

So he lovingly recreates these

1:02:46

bouts.

1:02:47

Yeah. Like he is from a shooting

1:02:49

perspective he does a great job with it I will

1:02:51

say like the cinematography during the fights. I

1:02:53

was a little off with some of the digital

1:02:56

cinematography they're doing here like the

1:02:58

up close you know handheld camera

1:03:01

you know rapid-fire punches kind of coming at the camera

1:03:03

stuff is like a little overused. Yeah.

1:03:05

I feel like he's trying to get across

1:03:07

like the speed at which it would seem like if you're

1:03:10

a normal mortal in these things and it's just like

1:03:13

you know it looks it looks manageable

1:03:15

from the vantage of like the TV cameras

1:03:18

but if you were if you are in Ali's

1:03:20

shoes the speed of about is

1:03:22

like

1:03:23

lethal.

1:03:24

Totally. He goes that every time and it's

1:03:26

just kind of like

1:03:28

at this point it'd be like like you know what

1:03:30

it is? GoPros don't exist yet but it's

1:03:32

the corniness of like we just put a GoPro

1:03:34

on someone's forehead and we just had them like

1:03:36

do a few boxing drills. Totally.

1:03:38

But for

1:03:41

the most part these fights are like intimate,

1:03:43

they're scary, they're violent,

1:03:46

they're intense. The boxing ring

1:03:48

is a

1:03:50

perfect environment for

1:03:52

cinema right like they're they're over lit

1:03:55

you can you can play it up so it's almost like a black

1:03:57

box theater in terms of

1:03:59

like every

1:03:59

Everyone just disappears outside

1:04:02

the ring because it's so over lit. But

1:04:05

like, yeah, these these fights like generally

1:04:08

look terrific.

1:04:10

But in the big ones,

1:04:13

as Ali begins to like

1:04:16

work it around than his favor,

1:04:18

triumphant music starts to play like like the

1:04:20

score begins to swell.

1:04:22

And it's like, yep, I get it. I'm

1:04:24

supposed to be thrilled. This is supposed to be how this is happening.

1:04:26

But here's the other thing.

1:04:29

It's still a vicious fucking boxing about

1:04:32

like

1:04:33

you can like you can put whatever score you

1:04:35

want, but honestly, you're doing a disservice to

1:04:37

what you're showing, which is this is an intensely

1:04:40

violent, scary sport. And

1:04:43

so the music begins to swell and be so

1:04:45

much more effective. It's like.

1:04:47

Dude, this is just a combat sequence.

1:04:50

Like there's there's no there like

1:04:52

you're trying to impose an arc on something that

1:04:55

this is blood sport

1:04:56

like this is not shot

1:04:58

like Rocky. That's not how this is being this, not how

1:05:00

this film is assembled. That's how these fights are being shot.

1:05:03

And yeah, every time they just try to create this

1:05:05

like here, here's Ali rising the greatness

1:05:07

again, it really undercuts

1:05:10

the great work like man is done

1:05:12

in staging these things.

1:05:13

Yeah, I think the one time I would have allowed

1:05:16

it is kind of the end of the rumble of the jungle

1:05:18

fight, because the big swell of that

1:05:21

Salif Keda song tomorrow, like

1:05:23

I think that I put it this way. I watched

1:05:25

that movie like five days ago and that song has

1:05:28

been stuck in my head pretty much since and

1:05:30

it's a great song. But also the way it swells

1:05:33

in that moment with the rain coming

1:05:35

down and everyone cheering

1:05:36

again in a movie that had a better build

1:05:39

to that moment, it had a better villain and a better

1:05:41

arc to all of this.

1:05:43

That would be one of the most triumphant scenes in sports

1:05:45

cinema. But it just doesn't have any

1:05:47

of those things. And the song is really

1:05:49

the only thing kind of carrying the emotional weight

1:05:52

of it that in like the visual of the rain pouring down

1:05:54

on everyone.

1:05:55

And. Again,

1:05:57

I think that one I would allow, but elsewhere.

1:05:59

where it really does feel overused. And

1:06:02

it feels like as good as a lot of the music

1:06:04

in this movie is, it's deployed

1:06:06

in such a weird way. Like the length

1:06:08

of those different concert scenes, just

1:06:12

the random use of Moby at one

1:06:14

point. You know, I mean, obviously this is Moby phase,

1:06:16

but like it just kinda,

1:06:17

it kinda sticks out from the rest of the soundtrack,

1:06:20

which is very focused on black music

1:06:22

in a lot of ways. And I just,

1:06:24

I don't know, like

1:06:27

I kinda feel like man is just out

1:06:29

of his element here in a lot of ways. And he's trying

1:06:31

to throw things that he knows how to do into

1:06:34

the mix and none of them are sticking the way

1:06:36

he wants. It's, you know, it's like

1:06:38

we've traveled 20 years or so and

1:06:41

he's still got the same things he struggles with in

1:06:43

Crime Story.

1:06:45

Yeah. Which is like,

1:06:47

But he's got much more budget to work with. Right, but

1:06:50

like Crime Story still has all these scenes of

1:06:52

being like, man, wouldn't

1:06:54

it be cool

1:06:56

to be like one of the in crowd at

1:06:58

a black blues club? Wouldn't that be awesome?

1:07:01

Yeah. And it's like, it would, but

1:07:04

like this movie sort of stands with nose

1:07:07

pressed against the glass, you

1:07:09

know, trying to get in there. And

1:07:12

it just, it can't, like

1:07:14

there's too much, there's too much admiration for the

1:07:17

moment, the culture

1:07:20

in man's

1:07:22

take on this. There's too much admiration for

1:07:24

Ali as a figure that it feels

1:07:27

like he can't quite,

1:07:30

every other man protagonist,

1:07:33

the things that make them unbearable are

1:07:35

closely intertwined of things that like make

1:07:37

them the heroes of the story

1:07:40

in some ways. And he even tries

1:07:42

to put some of this in Ali's mouth where he's

1:07:45

like, you know, there's

1:07:49

an inner monologue part where it's like, I'm a man

1:07:52

ready to die for this, to

1:07:54

win this fight. I am willing to die

1:07:57

for this. Then it's shades of like James Khan

1:07:59

and thief.

1:07:59

or whatever, I will

1:08:02

give up everything in order to keep

1:08:05

you from dominating me and such.

1:08:08

But it just doesn't fully

1:08:11

work here. It's an attempt to create a compelling

1:08:14

sketch. But

1:08:18

because the film doesn't show much cost

1:08:21

for that, it doesn't

1:08:22

show much like, here's

1:08:25

the dark side of that persona,

1:08:28

then it doesn't really have much

1:08:30

bite as a virtue either. Yeah.

1:08:33

It feels like in going into

1:08:35

this, man thought Ali was a figure

1:08:38

that fit perfectly into the kind

1:08:40

of driven protagonist, the kind of like

1:08:42

single minded protagonist that he is

1:08:45

very, you know, I'd say largely

1:08:47

dedicated to portraying in the majority

1:08:49

of his stuff.

1:08:51

And I wonder if just somewhere along the way

1:08:53

he realized

1:08:54

he's not that and the

1:08:56

ways in which he is complicated, simply,

1:08:58

they were either eluding him,

1:09:01

or he just couldn't find a way to tell that

1:09:03

story that made sense to him.

1:09:06

So he tried to give it, you know, make it a style

1:09:08

exercise. He tried to make it something that

1:09:10

was a little less, you know, linear and a

1:09:12

little less,

1:09:14

you know, focused on the

1:09:16

singularity of the character, but he

1:09:18

would have needed a better performance to

1:09:20

make that work. And it's

1:09:22

not again, it's not that I think that like Will Smith is bad

1:09:24

in this movie, he's not. But he's

1:09:26

doing a very standard biopic

1:09:29

portrayal of a figure that figure

1:09:31

that I think deserved and needed a

1:09:34

lot more texture than what he was

1:09:36

able to offer.

1:09:38

Yeah, it's, I mean, you see how they

1:09:40

get at Will Smith is the guy to play him because Oh,

1:09:43

yeah, it's an easy call. Oh, yeah. Like,

1:09:46

like, who else? Who are you going to get

1:09:48

to sell

1:09:49

all these rhymes effectively,

1:09:51

the sort of

1:09:54

pre bout gab that

1:09:56

was his trademark like, like

1:09:58

ironically, I think Jamie Foxx.

1:09:59

could have also done it, but Jamie Foxx wasn't quite

1:10:02

at that.

1:10:03

I feel like he, like,

1:10:04

what was it? And he gave him Sunday was 99.

1:10:07

Yeah. So yeah, like he was, you

1:10:09

know, he was a couple of years into like, okay,

1:10:11

he's getting some plum rolls now, but I don't know if he

1:10:13

was carry this movie level

1:10:15

yet. No. And I mean, but you can see

1:10:18

like,

1:10:18

this is certainly one man decides he is because

1:10:22

like Jamie Foxx is given the character

1:10:24

actor role of Bundini

1:10:27

and nails it as far as like,

1:10:29

as far as the film is concerned, like his performance

1:10:32

of Bundini is like

1:10:35

captures why he's like the boon

1:10:37

companion of Ali, no

1:10:40

matter how straight

1:10:42

and narrow Ali strives to be. And also

1:10:45

why he is a bit of a times a

1:10:47

charity case for Ali as well. Yeah. He

1:10:50

gets lost in the world very

1:10:52

easily. But yeah, I mean, you know,

1:10:55

you see how they end up at Smith

1:10:57

as sort of a natural Ali,

1:11:01

but he's so he is so lost

1:11:03

in the impression and the screenplay gives nothing

1:11:07

else to do beyond

1:11:09

that impression that the film ends up

1:11:11

kind of kind of falling flat.

1:11:14

And I think, you know, maybe there's kind of two

1:11:16

legacies, you know, this film seems to have for

1:11:18

man. One is I think

1:11:20

this is his first time shooting

1:11:23

digitally.

1:11:24

Yes, I believe it. And I don't think it looks good,

1:11:27

but man loves it.

1:11:29

No, the scenes here that are definitely digital

1:11:31

camera like the the, you know, Knights on

1:11:33

the rooftop type stuff like him, you

1:11:35

know, like doing his training in the beginning,

1:11:38

like

1:11:39

I can understand why he would have thought

1:11:42

that was an interesting way to shoot

1:11:44

that stuff to make it look a little more gritty

1:11:46

and a little more on the ground than the, you

1:11:48

know, the full on

1:11:50

film stuff. But

1:11:51

digital technology being where it was in 2000 2001.

1:11:55

It just looks grainy

1:11:57

as shit and not in a way that really

1:12:00

really befits the rest of the film.

1:12:02

I like, I was like, what happened to this transfer?

1:12:04

Like the, like the first time I was like, what on earth is

1:12:06

going on here? Did the, like, did they lose the

1:12:09

original? But no, it's just like that

1:12:11

generation, digital cameras got

1:12:13

noisy as hell. Uh, so quickly,

1:12:16

but man comes out of this being

1:12:18

like correctly, these things are

1:12:20

the future. And I suspect

1:12:23

they are particularly learning to man because

1:12:25

as, as D has reminded us a lot

1:12:27

and in other episodes we've done, man

1:12:30

loves shooting in environments that

1:12:32

are just nightmares if you're shooting on film.

1:12:34

Right. And digital

1:12:37

gets you out of that in a lot of cases, digital

1:12:40

opens up possibilities for lighting

1:12:42

and capturing scenes. They're just not open

1:12:45

to someone shooting on film.

1:12:48

And I do feel like in

1:12:51

some ways you could look at, uh,

1:12:54

collateral, which, you

1:12:56

know, we're, we're talking about next as

1:12:59

kind of a correction for what happens

1:13:01

with, you

1:13:05

know, with Ali.

1:13:08

Yeah. Because it tightly

1:13:11

focuses it. Like Ali has a question

1:13:13

of like, what the fuck is this movie about? Who's the antagonist?

1:13:16

What are the characters?

1:13:18

Collateral. That's not a question at all in collateral.

1:13:20

No. Yeah. It is

1:13:22

a complete character study,

1:13:25

uh, through the lens of a relationship over the

1:13:27

course of one incredibly

1:13:29

violent night. Yeah. And

1:13:32

Jamie Fox is going to be one holding this down

1:13:34

and the other half of it, like it is like,

1:13:37

like in the wake of this, I look collateral now

1:13:39

as like a, we are leaving nothing to

1:13:41

chance right. Cause he

1:13:43

realizes like what he's got in Jamie

1:13:46

Fox. Uh, he

1:13:48

like

1:13:49

narrows the focus movie star in the

1:13:51

world to play this other character. And a movie star who I think

1:13:53

it was only becoming truly clear

1:13:55

at that point.

1:14:00

is similarly weird

1:14:02

about authenticity the way man is. And it's,

1:14:04

to me, the strangest thing about this

1:14:06

is this is their only collaboration.

1:14:09

Because I cannot

1:14:11

imagine two creators

1:14:13

who would seem more simpatico

1:14:15

in terms of how they like

1:14:17

to approach their craft, but,

1:14:22

you know, I also- Drew's gotten his pet director at

1:14:24

Macquarie.

1:14:24

It's true. And I also do wonder if maybe

1:14:27

there's a little bit of like two perfectionists kind

1:14:30

of bumping up against one another. I mean, I think man

1:14:32

has, I mean, we'll get into it when we talk about collateral, but

1:14:34

I think man has always been very complimentary about Cruise

1:14:36

and his work ethic and the way that they work together.

1:14:39

But he has never been like, I can't wait to work with

1:14:41

Tom Cruise again. And I'm, you know, I'm wondering

1:14:43

if maybe there were some reasons for that. But,

1:14:45

yeah, collateral is a hell of a movie and I can't wait to watch

1:14:47

it again.

1:14:48

And I mean, it is fair, like, outside

1:14:51

of his cast of like, the

1:14:54

ensemble theater troupe that

1:14:56

he carries with him, throughout a lot of his career.

1:14:59

Shout out to Bruce McGill, also shooting up here again.

1:15:02

Just being

1:15:05

absolutely menacing. Just to hang

1:15:07

out in Africa for a little while. Can you just

1:15:09

deliver this line in French to just scare the shit out of

1:15:11

everybody? Great.

1:15:14

But, outside

1:15:16

of those people who'd like work with man again

1:15:18

and again, I mean, he does not seem

1:15:21

to work with the same leading men very

1:15:23

often more than once. The Chino

1:15:25

is like the rare exception. And Fox,

1:15:29

and Fox, this goes famously

1:15:31

wrong with Miami Vice. Like, arguably,

1:15:34

like man pushes and pushes. And

1:15:36

like,

1:15:37

you know, the question of who is at fault for

1:15:39

what happened with Miami Vice. And

1:15:42

like,

1:15:44

you know, who was difficult to work with

1:15:47

is one we'll probably get into. But

1:15:49

it does seem very likely that in addition to that

1:15:51

like, two perfectionist thing you're talking

1:15:53

about, Alex, it's just like a

1:15:56

man film seems like a hard thing.

1:15:59

to endure

1:16:01

more than once. In

1:16:04

the comments that

1:16:06

the leads in last level, he can't

1:16:09

like enormously proud of it. Also,

1:16:12

it was like they were deployed to a

1:16:15

foreign country for like

1:16:17

months on this shoot and it was not fun.

1:16:20

So I'm curious

1:16:23

if that's part of the explanation for

1:16:25

this. But yeah, I think like Ali

1:16:28

is sort of a mystifying misfire

1:16:31

and

1:16:31

maybe it's partly that it is tough

1:16:33

to make a movie about an American saint, particularly

1:16:35

while he's still alive.

1:16:38

Yeah, yeah, I guess

1:16:40

the version that came out on Blu-ray

1:16:42

around

1:16:44

whatever the last release was, that was the version I

1:16:46

watched, they added a little Muhammad Ali,

1:16:48

you know, birth year 2016 to it

1:16:51

because obviously they couldn't do that while he was still alive.

1:16:54

And I don't know that it needed that

1:16:56

necessarily, like just a little bit of text

1:16:58

on screen at the end to be like, oh, by the way, he's passed

1:17:01

on. We love you, big guy.

1:17:03

It doesn't really affect any aspect

1:17:05

of the story they're telling. It just feels like a weird little

1:17:07

addition. It just makes it feel more like a weird

1:17:10

tribute.

1:17:11

And it's like, the

1:17:13

weird thing is like Spike ends Malcolm X

1:17:20

with black kids from all around

1:17:22

the world doing the I Am Spartacus thing. Yes.

1:17:26

And you're like,

1:17:27

you know what? After three and a half hours, you get to do this

1:17:29

victory lap. Absolutely. Hell yes.

1:17:33

Like bring out Nelson Mandela,

1:17:36

you know, talk about how this legacy lives

1:17:38

on, go for it. And it

1:17:40

doesn't feel just the way that little legend

1:17:43

does. And I think part of it is because

1:17:45

like

1:17:46

in that whole film, like it is an admiring portrait

1:17:49

of Malcolm X, but

1:17:51

like the,

1:17:54

I guess the work that is done for Spike Lee in

1:17:57

making that film is that at

1:17:59

a pivotal moment,

1:17:59

Malcolm X, his later days are

1:18:02

him also

1:18:03

realizing that he's been wrong about a lot of stuff.

1:18:06

And that he has been put in some

1:18:08

boxes by his association with

1:18:10

the nation that he now wants out

1:18:12

of. And sort of the great question is where does his career

1:18:15

go if he's not assassinated? And

1:18:18

so he's sort of given that kind of arc.

1:18:20

But with Ali, it's just

1:18:22

a complete, this

1:18:26

is an American icon. What

1:18:28

do we do with this guy? And the answer

1:18:30

is sadly in Ali,

1:18:33

not very much. Yeah.

1:18:35

Like I will just go on record here

1:18:37

as saying this is my least favorite of the man things we

1:18:39

have watched so far. And as much as I think Keep

1:18:41

is, the Keep is like a much more like

1:18:44

spectacular failure,

1:18:46

there is a spectacular quality to

1:18:48

it. There's something of the director working

1:18:51

what feels like so far outside his wheelhouse

1:18:54

and really just getting stuck

1:18:57

waist deep in it while he's trying to figure out how

1:18:59

to make this movie work and then the studio stuff on

1:19:01

top of it. Like the Keep is a

1:19:03

weird fucking movie. And that's at least

1:19:05

interesting to me. Ali is neither

1:19:08

weird nor interesting nor

1:19:10

exciting really. And I think that

1:19:13

I just it feels like a bizarre

1:19:15

blip

1:19:16

that maybe is a little less of one

1:19:18

as we get into the very late stages

1:19:20

of man's career. But it is.

1:19:23

But at this stage, it feels like the

1:19:25

thing that just works the least.

1:19:28

So next time we are going to look

1:19:30

at 2004 is collateral starring

1:19:34

Fox and Cruz.

1:19:36

And

1:19:38

it's been a it's been a few years since I've seen it.

1:19:41

But certainly I now

1:19:43

appreciate much more how

1:19:45

much this is a return

1:19:48

to familiar themes and stomping

1:19:51

grounds for men as

1:19:54

well as in some ways a response

1:19:56

to the lack of thematic focus that

1:19:59

plagues all of.

1:19:59

collateral is

1:20:02

one of maybe the

1:20:05

most razor-honed

1:20:07

films in

1:20:09

man's career. And

1:20:12

it's another one of those that catch

1:20:14

me on the right day, I would say this

1:20:17

is his greatest work. And so

1:20:19

I'm eager to revisit collateral

1:20:22

in a month's time. Until then,

1:20:24

thanks for listening and subscribing to Waypoint

1:20:26

Plus and putting up with

1:20:29

our extremely specific bullshit, especially

1:20:31

when it is about a

1:20:34

somewhat middling offering in

1:20:37

the

1:20:37

great man's career. But a

1:20:39

good reason to rewatch When We Were

1:20:41

Kings and Malcolm X, that's time

1:20:44

as always time well spent.

1:20:46

Peace. you