Tyson

I wouldn't want to be Mike Tyson, not in a million years or for a million dollars, at any stage of his life. He grew up on the mean, poor streets of Brooklyn, stole and robbed in his young teen years, got sent to Juvenile Hall and then was trained by Cus D'Amato, famous and talented boxing trainer, and then became a boxing machine in the ring only to see his self-confidence and inner demons take over him as he saw everything crumble around him. At least, that's what James Toback's film on Tyson would want us to believe, or have us hear him out on anyway. What's clever, and most absorbing, about Tyson is that it doesn't ask us to see all of the truth in the facts in this man's life, but that there may be some truth in this man's own self-analysis. We get no other voice in the film to contradict or say otherwise what Tyson himself says in looking back (we see old videos of what other people have said about him, be it boxing announcers to the infamous interview Robin Givens gave to Barbara Walters with Tyson sitting next to her). He's not exactly a very "good" man even by his own estimation, but if there's one thing that he'd want to get out in the open, by his own admission, he's trying, Lord how he's trying. The interviews, done as Mike Tyson was getting himself cleaned up of drugs and alcohol, are shot in the face-to-camera approach of Errol Morris, but there's another influence I wonder if Toback was tooling with which is Robert Altman. This may be the only documentary I can think of where the one and only interviewee's dialog and words overlap each other in most cases. This is very effective, such as when Tyson is talking about his time in prison for rape and we hear and see his various memories of the experience overlapping one another. This, plus a strongly edited split-screen effect, creates a kind of prism-vision of Mike Tyson in this very focused portrayal of the man, myth, legend himself. It's self-confession and a history lesson. For someone who hasn't followed all of Tyson's career and personal life the former is put into good light. I learned almost all I needed to know about Tyson as a boxer from this film. As a human being that may be another matter. He is honest about himself, as if in a therapy session, but to what degree (even to his friend of 20 years, the director) is hard to say. But this only adds to the interest; how much his trainer's death in the mid 80s really had on him as a boxer is really hard to say, since he contradicts himself as saying he was never the same after his death, losing his already fragile self-confidence, while also becoming one of the dominant presences in boxing in the 20th century in the late 80s and early 90s. What one gets from this film is something rare in documentary, which is no-BS bias. We get no other point of view but this subjective portrait, which is sometimes harsh on himself and sometimes, arguably, not harsh enough. For those who only know of the crazy-ass Tyson (i.e. "I'm gonna f*** you till you love me" quotes) one can see him open up on his own past of being so afraid and with such a lack of self-esteem that this profession he chose was the only logical way to go aside from death or in prison for longer than that of his rape conviction (which, true to subjective portrait, he still denies to this day). It's not perfect as a documentary, and there are a couple of points I groaned inside from Toback's artistic choice, most notably the shots of Tyson walking on a beach at sunset with some poetry narration (that's right, Tyson breaking out the stanzas) that feel so against the hardcore personal nature of the rest of the picture. It's like we're all collective psychiatric interpreters of this incredibly flawed once-truly-great fighter, and at the least there's nothing else like it in boxing film history or just in theaters now in general. 9.5/10

I think the person above has watched/reviewed the wrong film. I've just got back from seeing this and it's purely a documentary featuring an interview with Tyson himself - no-one else, no actors. I say 'interview' but you don't actually hear any questions asked - this is just Mike talking about his life/career almost as a monologue. I thought it was a fantastic effort at just letting the user take from the picture what they want - there is no attempt to create a bias for or against Tyson in any way. I never liked Tyson as a fighter/person but I realise having watched this that the person we saw tear up the heavyweight division in the 90s was a long way from the man himself. He now comes across as a humble man - though with few regrets. The interspersing of his fights with his dialogue is superbly done - credit to the the direction of James Toback.

source: Tyson

Ah! Tyson is not a monster! Not a brutal beast! Not an animal! Finally someone shows it in a simple way. I'm very glad for this documentary that shows this great champ in a different light from what we are so used to see on the news, on you tube or on the papers. The "fierce psychopath" is actually (can you believe?) a human being like you and me, with ups and downs and anger and rage like every other person. He can even talk and say interesting and clever things without jumping right at your ear. It's a very well made documentary, sometimes a little bit to slow, sometimes with to many images moving at the same time through the screen, but a respectable piece of work. A solid portrait of a man was achieved, a man who is standing on his feet, a man who lived more intensely than most people can dream of, a man whose life is far more balanced than so many lives around the globe. Mike Tyson. A human being at last.

Tyson, the documentary is a new film: When I saw Tyson fight in his younger days, even before he became Heavyweight Champion of the World, when there was only one Heavyweight Champ, I thought that no one would beat him until he would be in his late thirties. I thought he was the only champ who would beat Joe Louis' record 12 year reign... To me he was furious, the fiercest, most fearsome boxer that I had ever seen. I wanted to check his gloves for the horseshoes that must have been there. (My father, the real expert, an amateur boxer in his lightweight days, and a real fan, and, further, unlike me, a man who had actually seen fights in person since his short pants days, did not agree -- but he was wrong -- the only time.) -- Dad gave the tip of his hat to Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, and Rocky Marciano. -- and he wasn't sure about Ali. (But, as I said, he was wrong...) And then I heard Tyson on the radio with Joyce Carol Oates ( a boxing fan who had written a non-fiction book called "On Boxing," and the "Amazin' Bill Mazer, a man with total recall, who knew everything there was to know about every fighter going back and probably beyond bare fisted days, beyond Sullivan, Fitzsimmons and Corbett. But Mike Tyson, the lispy kid fighter, from Brownsville, who owned the Undisputed World's Heavyweight Championship, was right up there with the Amazin' One, and with Joyce Carol Oates, holding his own in the kind of conversation that Norman Mailer had with Jose Torres, Pete Hamill, and Budd Schulberg. From that moment on I became a Tyson fan, and his unexpected, shocking downfall has been a twenty year disappointment to me. The movie opens only in NYC and LA, so you lucky ones who live there should go to see it no matter what you think of Mike The Tragic Tyson. We can all learn, even at this age, from our fallen idols. (Well, Joyce, you're not up there with the rest of us, but you will be.) mek Here's something I wrote 12 months ago: Other important matters: recently a book on boxing was written in England. Joyce Carol Oates reviewed it in the New York Review and she mentioned something similar. You may not be aware of this but Oates is an expert on boxing and a fan. I heard her several years ago, with supralapsarian Mike Tyson (also an authority on the history of boxing) and the Amazin' Mazur, a sports announcer with an encyclopedic memory. She fit right in. And Tyson was pretty good too! This is Oates writing: "The symbolism of boxing does not allow for ambiguity: it is as middleweight Albert Camus put it, 'utterly Manichean.' The rites of boxing 'simplify' everything. Good and evil, the winner and the loser. " Later she writes,: Here's "a quote attributed to Sonny Liston: ' It's always the same story--the good guy verses the bad guy.' " What strikes me here is not so much that Camus and Liston arrive at the same conclusion, but rather that Liston's expression is so perfect, so succinct. The simple use of the five cent word instead of the two dollar word.

In this movie I got several answers from many questions I had wondered about Tyson. The biggest was what was going on in his head when he bet of Holyfields ear, and after I seen the movie, I thought it was understandable why Tyson did that. It was very interesting to see how his life was and how he's living now. I really hope that people who think that Tyson is an animal see this movie, because here is the real story of him. I really feel sympathy for him after I seen this. For me, Mike Tyson will always be the best boxer of all the time and one of the greatest sportsman. At the moment, this is the best documentary I've ever seen and I thought the movie was very original and well made.

I stepped into Tyson with a pretty distinct idea of who the subject was, where he came from, and what I thought of his legacy. Ultimately, I was hoping this kind of long-session chat in a comfortable place with the former champion would reveal some special insight into his complex identity and deliberately checked my preconceptions at the door to better facilitate an open mind. Turns out I really shouldn't have bothered. Despite his best intentions to prove otherwise, Mike Tyson comes across as a simple man who desperately wants to be deep but is either unwilling or unable to hide the truth. At the core of his being he's pure reflex, which is a trait that served him well during his days in the ring but left him ripe for coercion outside its boundaries. Phenomenal athletes rarely double as tangible role models, and Tyson himself offers dramatic proof of that fact. Little more than an ego stroke, the documentary focuses almost exclusively on the ex-champ's point of view and skims over or accepts thin excuses for each of the more intriguing moments of his life. The most surprising thing about it came from Mike's old training footage, and the realization of just how blindingly fast he really was at his peak.

At first I was skeptical about the documentary Tyson, because I saw Tyson's name in the credits as, I believe, one of the Executive Directors. So how honest can a documentary about one's self be? But I was surprised if not shocked by the candidness of this film. Tyson shares all, from venereal diseases to drug abuse to his complete apathy toward boxing toward the end of his career. The only subject we can dare question is his rape conviction, but he is so painfully candid about everything else, it's hard not to take him at his word about that as well. It's pretty hard to sympathize with a multimillionaire who calls twenty or thirty million dollars a "small amount of money," but the purpose of this movie isn't to make anyone sympathize, but rather simply to tell a true story with brutal honesty. And of course even that honesty is filtered through the point of view of Tyson himself, the primary narrator who is talking about himself, but that is okay. because nowhere in Tyson does the film mislead us into thinking it is anything else. This is probably the most honest documentary you are likely to see.

Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson looks at his own life in and out of the ring with a candor and eloquence that is by turns shocking, funny, hair-raising and never less than brutally honest. In other words, Tyson explores... Tyson. This film portrait ranges from Tyson's earliest memories of growing up on the meanest streets of Brooklyn through his entry into the world of boxing under the stewardship of his beloved trainer Cus D'Amato. It also covers his misadventures with Don King and his tortured marriage to Robin Givens, his roller-coaster ride through the fun house of worldwide fame, and his fortunes won and lost. Tyson 7/10

Everybody likes this film but me. So be it. I can't find much to recommend this film. I should point out that my review may be tainted by the viewing environment I saw it in. I was at a Windsor International Film Festival screening, where some Chatty Cathys (the real term is unfit for this site) had moved their seats to the left back corner, and talked and laughed loudly over the entire film. They basically added a new sound channel that wasn't supposed to be there, which certainly came as an unpleasant surprise to many of us. I would have walked out, but it was the only showing. So I missed about 10-15% of what was said on screen because they talked over it. Nevertheless, based on the other 85-90% I ultimately don't think I missed much. That said, here it is: The whole film is just Tyson speaking. Maybe it's a documentary. Maybe it's propaganda. Maybe it's an art film. But it isn't entertaining. Here's a man who has had his brains punched into jelly. Now listen to him speak through an entire film. It's hard to do. Subtitles really would have helped understand the slurred and lisped words some times. But worse, you don't get any wider picture of Tyson than his own mind. This is Tyson on Tyson. But no man is just what he thinks he is himself. Why no words from anyone else? Even when he comments about others, they are given no chance to respond. So it boils down to this is the story Tyson wants to tell about his life. Maybe it's true. Maybe not. Maybe he doesn't know. But it's the usual tale. Nothing new here. No surprises. So why bother? I found the split-screen idea forced. Usually, you'd use that to compare and contrast different things. But here, it's only to distract the viewer from realizing how boring it all is. I've seen all the Rocky films, Million Dollar Baby, and Don King: Only in America. None are documentaries, one might be a true story, but they're all better than this because they each tell a story that's interesting. What I would have liked to see was more material NOT directly from Tyson, and more background and detail on key fights and other events in his life. And I guess I wish he had a more interesting or unpredictable life, or had shown some kind of growth, or that his story had been placed in context regarding the rest of the boxing world, or that I didn't already know most of what he did just from the news growing up. Definitely a mis-fire. But I give it a 6 for at least doing what it apparently set out to do, which is let Tyson tell you what he wants to tell you about Tyson, combined with very brief clips of his fights and news.