Cinema Review: Ali (From Penarth Times)

Cinema Review: Ali

REALISING a personality as big as Muhammad Ali is a tall order for any film-maker, but between them director Michael Mann and star Will Smith damn near pull it off.

Covering the years between 1964 and 1974, this lengthy but involving biopic includes most of the major events of Ali's professional life from taking the world title from Sonny Liston, to being stripped of it for refusing the draft and winning it back at the famous showdown with George Foreman.

Most of the excitement is centred round the punishing boxing sequences, equally as good but wholly different from Raging Bull.

Mann adopts an almost documentary style - wisely, as much of what we know of Ali has been gleaned from newscasts, sports bulletins and documentaries like When We Were Kings.

Mann's direction - the opening scenes where Ali is introduced to the viewer intercut with a Sam Cooke concert are superb - is matched by Jon Voight's supporting performance as TV pundit Howard Cosell, a long-time Ali confidante.

Heavily made up but perfectly attuned to his character, Voight is only surpassed by Will Smith in the title role.

He manages the rare trick of breathing new life into a living legend. It's Smith's film and you can't help getting the feeling that - like Ali - he knows it.

And yet the finished article is slightly less than the sum of its parts and at nearly three hours long, there are times when it drags like a soggy Woodbine.

While there's no denying Ali's innate dignity and genuine - if flawed - humanity, there is nothing that's going to either win him any new fans or lose existing ones. The film lacks the knockout punch we might have expected, but Ali is still a clear winner on points.