WHEN WE WERE KINGS (1996) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Leon Gast
An Oscar-winning documentary about the "Rumble In the Jungle", the heavyweight title fight in 1974 between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. Mostly it's a time-capsule portrait of Ali, then in the autumn of a great career, psyching Foreman out, psyching himself up, jabbing and sparring with reporters, and mugging for every available camera. The bout in Zaire, which Ali won, would affect both fighters profoundly. Foreman was devastated, went into years of depression, eventually reinvented himself and incredibly won back the title, or some part of it, in his 40s. Ali, who introduced the "rope-a-dope" against Foreman, proved he could win a fight by getting hit - a lot - a strategy that arguably extended his career while contributing to the Parkinson's symptoms that would later debilitate him. The movie recalls a time when the world was younger, when George Plimpton and Norman Mailer were middle-aged journalists covering the fight, not old men remembering it, when the sheer force of Ali's personality reduced everybody around him, even Foreman, to supporting roles. It recalls a time that some of us remember, when all the world was Ali's stage, and Muhammad was the prince of players.
Muhammad Ali
(1942-2016)
