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Review

Tyson – Movie Review

With most documentaries about a person’s life, there are very few interview scenes with the actual person, instead featuring many scenes with people who were closely effected by the person in question. Tyson takes a much different approach, with the majority of the film featuring Mike Tyson discussing his own life, with a few scenes from his career and personal life mixed in.

The first question that probably comes to mind is, How much of Mike Tyson’s life is covered, or rather, does the film shy away from the controversial events? The answer is that Mike Tyson is not shy at all about even the most controversial moments of his life, from his rape conviction, to the famous ear biting incident, all that and more is talked about. What is even more shocking is actually the perspective he gives to the viewer, as a lot of the events of his life have been so heavily publicized that everyone knows what happened, but maybe not the whole story. Mike Tyson fills in his side of the story, and is not blaming others as one might expect he would do. In fact he is so honest about the events of his life and his career that he puts almost all of the blame on himself. The film starts with the scene of him winning his first heavyweight championship, but quickly snaps back to his childhood and his life in a rough part of Brooklyn, and builds a solid foundation for his story, explaining why he thinks the way he does and what motivated him. Of course from the beginning it is clear that the story he is telling is not a simple rags to riches story, but one about a tainted kid who grows up and has his ups and downs.

Of course no film about a pro boxer would be complete without a lot of talk regarding his accomplishments in the ring. Tyson does focus mostly on the career of Mike Tyson, but unlike most fight interviews where a fighter talks about a fight and gets into the moves he used and the intricacies of each particular fight, Mike Tyson goes over his mind set at the time and also how various things going on his life effected his boxing. Some may think of this as a way for him to make excuses, but it all relates back to him and the blame lays squarely there. A very necessary part of the film is the actual fights being shown, as they help break up the scenes of Mike Tyson speaking and allow for the viewer to get a picture of what was going on outside of Mike Tyson’s head.

Something very awkward about the movie that could turn some away is the presentation of the film, as sometimes it is hard to make out what Mike Tyson is saying, or some of the overlapping audio of Mike Tyson (done for affect) can cause a viewer to not catch everything being said, but other than that little hiccup, the majority of the movie is pretty clear. While the movie focuses on Mike Tyson’s life during his boxing days, there is a nice section on his family, which is probably where it would have been nice to see an interview with some of them, but it still functioned well on its own. One thing to note about those who are looking for it to be a film to take children to, it is rated R, and even if you have a kid who is a huge boxing fan, I would not recommend it. There is a section on sex and drugs, and Mike Tyson occasionally uses some rather strong language, so unless you are comfortable with those topics and the language, keep the kids away for now.

Ratings time, while I want to give this a Cool+, as it is just an interesting perspective piece, some may think the lack of other interviewees leaves something to be desired, but if you are into boxing, or interested in hearing the story of Mike Tyson and want to know his side of the story, then this is a great movie. For those who are only mildly interested, it is probably going to be a Cool- or even as low as a Meh, but it is certainly not Shite.

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About The Author

Genuwine Jon Hammer

The self proclaimed "Genuwine" Jon Hammer, currently a student studying at Digipen Institute of Technology to be a programmer. I am a huge pop culture nerd, so movies, music, tv, podcasts, and games are all important to me, in fact if I often post about such topics on my twitter.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Friday, June 19th, 2009
  • Author: Genuwine Jon Hammer
  • Filed Under: Film, Review
Tags: , , , ,

Comments

2 Responses to “Tyson – Movie Review”
  1. romain romain says:

    I saw this a couple of weeks ago and I totaly agree with you, I found the movie extremely interesting even though I’m not a huge boxing fan.
    That being said it’s nowhere near as amazing as “When We Were Kings”, still one of the best documenteries ever made in my opinion.

    June 20, 2009 at 6:53 am
  2. JC JC says:

    I’ve heard positive things about this documentary. For some reason, I never get to see it, unfortunately.

    July 2, 2009 at 7:44 pm

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