Ali **** (2001, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Mario van Peebles, Ron Silver, Jeffrey Wright) – Classic Movie Review 4619

Best Actor Oscar-nominated Will Smith gives a knockout turn as legendary fighter Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali in co-writer/ director Michael Mann’s punchy, imaginative, and intelligent 2001 epic biopic of the world’s best-known and best-loved boxer.

The screenplay by Mann, Stephen J Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson and Eric Roth details the 1964–74 decade of Ali’s rapid rise to stardom, his marriage, his capture of the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston, his conversion to Islam, his criticism of the Vietnam War, his banishment from boxing, his return to fight Joe Frazier in 1971, and culminating in his reclaiming the title from George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle fight of 1974. It is set against the background of social and political change in the United States after the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Among the other impressive performances, Jon Voight was also Oscar-nominated (for Best Supporting Actor) as Howard Cosell, Jada Pinkett-Smith plays Sonji Roi, Jamie Foxx is Drew ‘Bundini’ Brown, Ron Silver is Angelo Dundee, Jeffrey Wright is Howard Bingham, Mykelti Williamson is Don King, and Mario van Peebles plays Malcolm X.

The original running time is 157 minutes but catch the longer Director’s Cut at 165 minutes released to DVD in 2004. Mann revisited his film and created this new cut, removing around four minutes of the original footage and adding about 14 minutes of unseen footage.

Also in the cast are Nona M Gaye, Michael Michele, Joe Morton, Bruce McGill, Paul Rodriguez, Barry Shabaka Henley, Giancarlo Esposito, LeVar Burton, Albert Hall, David Cubitt and Ted Levine.

It cost a huge $107 million and grossed a disappointing $58 million in the US (total worldwide box office $87 million).

There were just the two Oscar nominations and no wins, with three Golden Globe nominations (for Smith and Voight plus Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke for Best Original Score) and no wins.

Mann and Foxx reunited for Collateral (2004).

Ali returned to US cinemas in a few hundred locations nationwide the weekend after the American iconic boxer died on 3 June 2016, as a celebration of his life.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4619

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