ALI

THE RUMBLE IN THE CINEMAS

On January 29 former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson was denied a license to fight Lennox Lewis after a Nevada Commission evaluated his "career" of ear and leg-biting, assorted sordid altercations and one rape conviction.

Film Review by Hariette Surovell

If only Spike Lee could be restrained from directing movies on the basis of his vicious verbal assaults on people as diverse as Quincy Jones, Wim Wenders, Eddie Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and his own step-mother, "the Jewish bitch".

Lee invariably retracts these jabs. While proclaiming himself to be a pugilist for Black people, this fighter has been unable to procure a sufficient purse for his films ever since his grandmother bankrolled his debut release She's Gotta Have It.

But then, calling Warner Brothers "a plantation" and expecting to receive mega-bucks from other major motion picture studios is akin to biting one's own ear off.

In the battle between heavyweight director Michael Mann's Ali and any featherweight Spike Lee film, Mann definitely puts the belt on. Ali is the main event, with Will Smith performing like a champ, embodying rage, confidence, stubbornness and heroism.

From opening scenes of Sam Cooke prophetically singing A Change is Gonna Come; the film warms up through intense glimpses into the swings of Ali's friendship with Malcolm X and his power-punching marriage to second wife Belinda, played to perfect-pitch by Nona Gaye, daughter of the late Marvin, (who himself iconically represented Black individualism).

Mann moves on to an ebullient Ali jogging through the Zaire streets surrounded by chanting African children, and this life-as-contest biopic culminates in Ali's triumphant victory gesture after winning the Foreman fight.

It's a knock-out.

By contrast in Spike Lee's Malcolm X, Denzel Washington disrespects the relentlessly self-critical Malcolm X by portraying him as a charming criminal, a shy suitor and finally, a warm and cuddly Islamic orator. Lee, an admitted sexist, omits one of Malcolm X' s most formative influences: his dignified, ebony-skinned half-sister Ella Little.

Ironically, the most devastating scenes of Malcolm X's horrifically racist childhood, of hooded Klansmen threatening and then finally assassinating his father, take on an almost cartoonish quality under Lee's "dopey" direction .

No contest here. Lee should just remove his "X" cap from the ring.

printer-friendly version

back