Ali

Notoriously obsessive director Michael Mann and star Will Smith devoted nearly two years and over 100 million dollars from the coffers of Columbia Pictures and other financiers to creating this biography of boxing great Muhammad Ali, which focuses on the ten-year period of 1964-1974. In that time, ...more

Always a technician at the top of his craft, Michael Mann proves it again with his visually alive take on the boxing life of Muhammad Ali, starring Will Smith in the role naysayers doubted he could play, and featuring all manner of virtuoso work inside the ring. While both director and star were generally praised, the film itself failed to appear on year-end ten-best lists, due to what might be described as an impenetrable emotional distance from its subject. Even with Smith silencing his ...more