Ali

Ali

Ali is a long, flat, strangely quiet movie about a heavyweight champion. It has none of the flash, fire or humor of Muhammad Ali. It’s shot like a eulogy instead of a celebration. There is little joy here and what joy there does exist in the film’s 157 minutes often plays long because it gives itself sequences that are drawn out to inexplicable lengths and hurries past others that should have been dramatic high points; it feels like an unfinished rough cut that might play better after editing.

Take for instance a training scene in Zaire after he traveled there for “The Rumble in the Jungle.” He starts his morning run running past a panorama of daily life. This is fine. But then he runs and runs and runs some more long after any possible point has been made. This is the kind of extended scene you see in an early assembly of a film before the heavy lifting has started in the editing room.

The film deals with 10 years in the life of Ali, from 1964 when he won the world heavyweight championship as Cassius Clay to 1974 when as Muhammad Ali he fought in the Rumble. This is his key decade, half-cut by three years when he was barred from boxing because of his refusal to be drafted.

And while many mistakenly believe he refused on guidance from the Nation of Islam, the film makes it clear that he took his stand on principle, and it cost him both his title and his religion the Nation disapproved of his decision, and suspended him. By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in his favor, he’d lost what should have been his prime years as a young fighter; when he went into that ring against George Foreman in Zaire, he was 32 years old to Foreman’s 24.

But Michael Mann tells those 10 years like events overheard this isn’t a documentary, but it seems to lack a fiction’s privileged access to its hero, and key scenes play out in enigmatic snippets of dialogue. We work to make connections. We see his wives, but don’t feel we know them: They fade in and out of focus like ghosts. The screenplay by Eric Roth and Mann appears reluctant to commit to a point of view, and leaves us to draw our own conclusions; during some scenes you can almost sense it shrugging. Ali remains an enigma.

This is despite what is actually a good job of acting on Smith’s part in the title role he has bulked up and looks convincing in the ring, but the key element of his performance is that he captures Ali’s enigmatic, improvisational personality; he gets the soft-spoken, kidding quality just right, and we sense Ali as a man who plays a colorful public role while keeping himself private. There are times when he grows distant from even those close to him and they look at him as if into a mystery.

The problem with Smith’s performance in the movie “Ali” is that it’s the wrong movie for him. (Smith does a lot of things right in this role, though; he’s sharp and fast and funny, like Ali himself in his trash-talking prime.) But there’s no way around it: The film doesn’t let him be those things. This isn’t a true statement as much as an observation: No man could have been more famous than Ali was in the ’60s.

And he loved every minute of it or at least that’s how I remember him from the day we spent together, when he seemed to be having so much fun I thought his eyes might pop out of his head. He was driving around Los Angeles in a Rolls-Royce limousine with tinted windows down because he wanted all the pedestrians to do double takes when they saw that it was him.

Smith could play that side of Ali, too. But “Ali” doesn’t see or know about that part of its subject it sees Ali as being more meditative, more subdued; sadder sometimes, when sadness is not the emotion you feel when you put everything on the line for what you believe. (Being under a cloud is one way to put how this movie feels.)

Among many other key people in Ali’s life four wives, trainer Angelo Dundee, right-hand man Bundini Brown, mentor Malcolm X, father Cassius Clay Sr., leader Elijah Muhammad none are given more authentic relationship with the character played by Smith than sportscaster Howard Cosell.

You can tell that Jamie Foxx had fun playing Bundini. (He sold me belt “and put it into my arm.”) The fight scenes look convincing enough up onscreen that you don’t find yourself thinking too much about them while they’re happening probably because Smith looks so at home in the ring.

But boxing wasn’t just what made Muhammad Ali special; it was the thing that most allowed him to be himself. He changed the subject: What he did for a living had very little to do with why (in my opinion) he is still today recognized as the most important African-American man of our lifetimes.

(If you thought Muhammad Ali was a “draft dodger,” by the way or if you’ve ever heard someone say that I’d like you to picture them in your mind right now, please. Think about what they look like; imagine them talking to you, this whole time while we’ve been sitting here together at Starbucks. Because I need you to understand something: Those people are racists. And I don’t care how nice they may seem.)

This is all true: The U.S. government wanted Ali to go fight in Vietnam so badly that they offered him a sweetheart deal all he had to do was play along and get his ass inducted, not play the angry black rebel who wasn’t going anywhere near a jungle and still keep his belt and entertain the troops overseas. But no, he couldn’t do that because then where would the moral high ground have been? It’s easy for us now, of course, with 50 years’ worth of hindsight on our side; we can see everything clearly from up here on top of Mount Righteousness.

Ali lost everything when he refused induction into Army during Vietnam War. He also lost blessing of Nation Islam which supported him throughout career as heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali said some racist things too though against white people sometimes calling them devils or making fun their skin color etcetera but it never seemed like his heart was really there with them anyway so maybe those statements were just jokes after all besides even if they weren’t then still nobody should take themselves too seriously

“No Viet Cong ever called me nigger” is famous quote from Ali.

The film has scenes with King and Malcolm X in it but doesn’t really deal with the you get more from Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X.” After King is shot, Ali watches a city burn he has no dialogue for this. We wait for things to be explained, for points to be made, for the movie to punch up what’s important but instead the dramatic high points slowly slide back down into a fog of unfocused and undisciplined footage.

The picture looks like it feels: tired; its visual look is as listless as its lack of energy; the colors are muted, the focus often a little soft. “Ali” resembles a movie that was never properly prepared and mounted, that got away from its makers in the shooting, that has been released without being completed.

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