I generally have zero patience for hagiographies, but I must admit as snowjobs go, Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings is grand entertainment, and I was never bored. Not surprisingly, Muhammad Ali carries the entire film; at the very least you’re guaranteed a performance worthy of Roberto DeNiro and Richard Burton, with the dialogue delivered in a reliable and often rhyming iambic pentameter. Ali is a mesmerizing presence, and When We Were Kings takes full advantage of this force of nature. But when you look beyond its hypnotizing façade, When We Were Kings is a documentary as deep and challenging as the kiddie side of the pool.

Walter Chaw once wrote of the easy cinematography of Brokeback Mountain, “… you could send a donkey with a disposable camera into that kind of landscape, and it would come back with a calendar.” The same could be said about filming Muhammad Ali; all you really had to do was point a camera at him, and you can’t miss. His manic, eloquent, ridiculously charismatic presence is a director’s dream. His eyes bulge out as he fires off his absurd boasts; the man is more handsome than Fabio Testi; and despite his Jesus-level popularity, Ali was the underdog in this legendary boxing match. On that level, When We Were Kings exploits the breathtaking scenery that is Ali to its fullest extent. You get to see press conference after press conference, full of Ali in rare form as he reinvents the English language.

But I’m afraid to report that When We Were Kings never really goes beyond its childish adoration of Ali. Ali remains a mirage, a presence that is certainty fascinating, but never fully human. At times, you see Ali feel the stress of having to face the huger, stronger, robotically savage boxer George Foreman. But that’s as deep as When We Were Kings ever gets. There is almost zero coverage of the madness that must have been the event itself; I mean, think about it, man. The two most famous boxers in the world, accompanied by a menagerie of rock stars, including James Brown and BB King, going to the insane, tinpot dictatorship of Zaire, in the capital city of Kinshasa. Surely there must have been a 1,001 tales of madness, high hilarity, horror, debauchery, and nobility when American Pop Culture slammed into the true dark heart of African bureaucracy and failing statehood.

But what do we get from When We Were Kings? Some music industry managers yapping on the phone. A few dry anecdotes from George Plimpton. And honestly, who gives a flying fuck what Spike Lee has to say about this 1974 event? He was seventeen at the time, and nowhere near Zaire. I love your films, Mr. Lee, but shut the fuck up. The fella who gets the rawest deal is the George Foreman, a boxer arguably as great as Ali, but who is set up as cheaply as the Washington Generals when they face the Harlem Globetrotters. When We Were Kings certainly does a credible job in portraying Foreman’s formidable power, such as the scene where Foreman literally leaves a dent in a heavy punching bag. But like Ali, Foreman is just a stage prop, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

When We Were Kings does a decent job of showing how the actual boxing match went down. The film made me fully appreciate Ali’s greatest masterpiece, his textbook and sublime Rope-a-Dope that triumphed over Foreman’s systematic pummeling. I’m not a big boxing fan, but even I was at the edge of my seat during these sequences. Boxing is nothing if not a scientific and strategic sport, and When We Were Kings makes you realize that the best boxers are the smart boxers.

But When We Were Kings should have been so much more. As a sports highlights reel, When We Were Kings makes for riveting viewing. But if you’re looking for a film about how the hell such a cockamamie event actually came into existence, and the resulting fallout of the event, forget about it. In the film’s most wince-inducing misstep, the director instead decides to hand you a montage of photographs of Saint Muhammad Ali’s life, accompanied by the godawful title tune of “When We Were Kings” that puts the “white” into white bread. If I were you, hit the fast forward button during this grievous miscalculation unless you’re a cinematic masochist or you’re convinced that Muhammad Ali was the Second Coming of Christ.

I put When We Were Kings in the same group as other misfires as The Great Silence, Better Luck Tomorrow, Black Snake Moan, and 5,000 Miles to Graceland: Films that has an infinite amount of potential, but were too terrified and conventional and in the end, too timid to really get all Apocalypse Now on our asses. And you know what? I would actually recommend you check out When We Were Kings for its undeniable virtues of being a briskly paced, fascinating look at the Ali-Foreman match. When We Were Kings is a fine party movie; you will get to hear some great music and some very funny stories. But as a fully human film, When We Were Kings is an unqualified failure.

Tags: george foreman, muhammed ali, when we were kings

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