The Greatest (1977)

I love this movie so much

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It should probably be a given that real life sports celebrities should never depict themselves in stories about their own life. Baseball star Jackie Robinson was called upon to do the same thing in a 1950 movie about his career up till then - "The Jackie Robinson Story". Quite unexpectedly, Robinson displayed a surprising lack of charisma portraying himself, no doubt due to the fact that he was probably very self conscious appearing on screen. The same can't be said of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali of course. I don't think anyone could ever accuse him of being camera shy, but this picture simply doesn't do the former champ justice.I say this with the hindsight of having grown up with Clay/Ali's name in the headlines virtually non-stop from the time he became a heavyweight contender and handed Sonny Liston that stunning defeat to become World Champion on February 25th, 1964. From that point on, the colorful boxer maintained a ubiquitous presence on front pages of the nation's newspapers with his prophetic poetry and outsized ego. The story here does touch on all that, with a whirlwind overview of his troubles with the government and the matches that brought him his second world title at the 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Kinshasa, Zaire against a formidable George Foreman.Notably absent from this biopic, and one I can't quite understand, was the omission of legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell, who followed Ali's career closely and became a close friend. With other members of Ali's inner circle portrayed by actors like Ernest Borgnine, John Marley and Lloyd Haines, Cosell's absence stuck out like a sore thumb for this viewer.One thing that the picture depicted that I was never aware of was the business with the young Clay throwing away his Olympic gold medal over a racial grievance. I can't imagine how that ever got by me, and so I questioned it's accuracy while watching the picture. An internet search revealed a story about someone finding the medal in the Ohio River some fifty four years later on June 21, 2014, thereby putting to rest any concerns that the story was fabricated by the loquacious Ali as a publicity stunt when it was revealed for the first time.Die hard Muhammad Ali fans will probably want to tune into this story, but on the flip side, die hard fans won't learn anything new, so the novelty would be in seeing Ali portray himself as a young man on his climb to becoming 'The Greatest'. Unlikely as it may seem, the 2001 film "Ali" starring Will Smith as the legendary champ is more inspirational than this one, and comes recommended for fans of the boxer and the man.

THE GREATEST is a lamentable attempt to chronicle the tumultuous life and career of self-proclaimed 'Greatest boxer of all-time', Muhammad Ali, between the fourteen year period of his 1960 olympic success and regaining the world title against George Foreman in 1974. This flat, boring and unrealistic mess fails in every department, it doesn't entertain the movie fan, or enlighten the boxing aficionado. Ali plays himself - and doesn't do a very good job of it. The spontaneity, charisma, energy and humour that Ali displayed in his televised real life press conferences is sadly missing from his screen performance. What we get is a subdued, below-par Ali, sometimes mumbling and slurring his lines, making hard work of Ring Lardner's lackadaisical script and the inept direction of Tom Gries. James Earl Jones, who has a very brief cameo as Malcolm X, summed up Ali's acting ability with succinct honesty: 'Given his own words, he was a great performer, but given somebody else's words there was a self-consciousness that he was unable to overcome. Ali wasn't a great craftsman in the art of acting'.Jones doesn't come out of this movie with much credit either. He's much too bulky and aged to convince as the dynamic Malcolm X. The only really good performance comes from Ben Johnson as the head of the syndicate who sponsor Ali after his olympic triumph. Johnson once starred in MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, in which a world heavyweight boxing champion, Primo Carnera, spars with a gorilla, the irony of which was not lost on me as I viewed this movie - given Ali's nickname for his bitter ring rival Joe Frazier.In between the Acting-By-Numbers sequences, clips of Ali's real fights are shown. Grainy b/w footage of Ali battering Lamar Clark, Archie Moore and Willie Besmanoff, plus a montage in colour of his comeback bouts against Buster Mathis, George Chuvalo, Jerry Quarry, Floyd Patterson, Bob Foster, Joe Bugner and Ken Norton. What I found interesting was seeing his old amateur foe and gym-mate Jimmy Ellis once again sparring with Ali just before the second Norton fight. Ellis was one of the very few boxers to beat Ali as an amateur, in 1958 at Louisville.There is a dedication at the end of the movie to director Tom Gries, who sadly died immediately after filming was completed. For a far better tribute to Gries talent, see the great Charlton Heston western WILL PENNY.

I am a big fan of Muhammad Ali. I am a HUGE fan of Muhammad Ali. I WANT to like this movie. But I can't. Ali is a horrible actor, simply terrible. And playing himself was a bad idea; it's like the old saying `the man who represents himself in court has a fool for a client.' Here, the man who plays himself in a biographic film of himself looks like a fool. Some of the worst scenes are the 1977 version of Ali playing the young Casius Clay. He appears rather, well, OLD for the part. Where was Will Smith when we needed him? Hiding from this dog in his mother's ovaries apparently. If you are a big fan of Ali's as I am, I recommend avoiding this film if you wish to remain a fan of his. Leave the room if you have to, box your way to the remote control, get it off your TV or leave the house yourself. Ali truly was the greatest. But this movie is not the greatest or even greater than any other flick I can recall. Even the legendary 'The Crawling Hand' of 'crawl back to bed and forget it' fame is better than this movie. So please, don't watch this bomb as I did; crawl back to bed and forget it.

Ali plays himself impressively in this biography of his remarkable boxing career. The greatest commands the screen alongside such actors as Robert Duval, Ernest Borgnine and James Earl Jones. The film is not as powerful, moving or exciting as it could have been and so is a slightly disappointing dramatization of a legendary boxing story. But, of course, just to see Ali doing what he does best (entertaining out of the ring as well as in) is a must for most. So, see it.