Ali

The chronology in "Ali," Michael Mann's take on the central decade of the life of the greatest heavyweight champion ever, slips and slides, accelerates and decelerates, so much so that even those familiar with the events will often be confused as to what was skipped, what was assumed as background knowledge, and what was imagined. Mann's camera, deliberate and composed as ever, nevertheless also seems uncertain; the shots circling Ali and his first love, for example, bob and weave with a disorienting precision. The colors often look less like the world in which we live and more like recreations of a fevered dream.

All this contributes mightily to a sense of distance that pervades "Ali": distance from the characters, who seem both larger than life and too strange to regard properly; distance from the fights, which feature blows that are ultimately more poetic than thundering; distance from events, which whip themselves up contextless and vanish just as suddenly. This is appropriate in a sense; none of us live in Muhammad Ali's world, and barring a strange, not entirely fortuitous circumstance, none of us ever will.

But on a very basic level, Mann's film needs not only to evoke for older viewers the turbulent atmosphere in which Ali made himself into a champion and stayed beloved through much ideological debate, but to communicate the same to younger viewers who did not have the benefit of being there when it was all happening. This "Ali" does not fully do; the confusion and exhiliration are there, but some basic clear-eyed appreciation of greatness is clouded over, lost along the way.

When the movie does succeed in communicating the genius, cunning and determination of Ali, it is because Will Smith has broken through the semi-fog and managed to make his character (still more famous than Smith will ever be) stand out as he did in life. Perhaps Smith is not completely convincing in the fight scenes; he's an actor, not a boxer, and in my opinion, considering that limitation, he is phenomenally convincing. But more important is the way in which Smith takes us into Ali, with subtly observed details. He takes little detours into watching termites on TV and reconciling with his father after his name change to make Ali present for us, and his basic conception of Ali's character can survive mercurial turns of fate and disposition. And Smith can bluff and brag and otherwise knock about the language with the best of them; it's impossible to imagine any other actor delivering Ali's self-promotional poems with the same assurance and exuberance. (After all, Ali's poetry anticipated the braggadocio of rap, which was the style in which Smith first became famous.)

"Ali" is not a great movie, but it needs to be seen, and Smith is the reason why you need to see it if you haven't already.

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