A young man named Cassius Glay (Will Smith) converts to the Nation of Islam, changes his name to Muhammad Ali and does battle with the US Government over the Vietnam War. Oh did I mention he was also the greatest athlete of all time?
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A lot of people argue that this film was unnecessary as it covered much of the same material as the amazing and Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings. I am not one of them. As great and engaging as that doc is, the filmmakers (like most documentarians) were limited by the footage available as well as the technology of the times. In a documentary you often have to rely on some talking head in an interview segment to tell you about an important moment. With a fiction film you get to see that moment. Film is after all a 'show me' medium rather than a 'tell me' medium. And boy does this movie show! Director Michael Mann's use of tiny digital cameras takes us literally inside a boxing match for the first time ever. Inside all of those split-second decisions that can either make or break a fight. I don't know what this says about me but, after seeing When We Were Kings, I was able to understand why people called him The Greatest, after seeing Ali, I believed it.
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