Ok, I know this probably seems like an odd topic in comparison to my usual subject matter. But, I figured, what the heck? It's interesting enough for me to babble on about for a little bit, so why not? ;) Anyway, recently I got to sit down and watch a documentary that I've been wanting to check out since it was released: Tyson. In case you haven't heard about it, it's a very personal overview of former heavy-weight champion boxer Mike Tyson's life, from his own mouth.
Growing up, I was one of those kids (like most of the other boys in school) that always sort of admired Iron Mike. The man was incredible. He even got extra cool points for having his own NES game!
As his career and life went on, as everyone knows, it got more and more controversial. To outside appearances, Mike seemed crazy and out of control. This is a reason I think the documentary is great. They don't shy away from any of that. Even Mike himself discusses how out of control things were. Is it biased? One sided? Perhaps. It is his side of the story. But the best thing (in my opinion, anyway) about Tyson, is that it really tells the story behind all of the craziness that went along with his amazing career.
Mike is very emotional at times. Once you learn about where he came from, all of the out of control times in his life make a lot more sense. I'm not saying that everyone will agree with everything he's done, but the film does a good job at peeling away the layers and revealing the person beneath all of that. It really makes everything (yes, including the ear biting) a lot more understandable upon reflection of his childhood and details of everything that he went through.
As far as the production quality, you'll notice that a lot of the footage used from early in his career is of low quality, which is understandable because of its age. However, I thought that did a lot to lend the film a gritty feel, which suited the subject matter well.
If I had one complaint, it would be that quite a few times during the documentary, they use clips of Mike talking, and then bring another clip of over top of it, and then another. I understand the effect they were going for, but for me it was really distracting as it cut off the beginning and end of a lot of his statements, making them jumbled and hard to understand. Other than that, however, I thought everything flowed nicely.
So overall, I would recommend Tyson to anyone who has even been even a little interested in his career or life. Keep in mind that its rating is for good reason - Mike is very candid and not shy at all about assigning expletive-filled descriptions to those who he felt did him wrong. I found myself agreeing with those descriptions more often than not, and thought that this documentary did a fine job revealing the man behind all of the controversy. Whether you like him or not, I think you'll at least understand him after watching it.
- Clint ^_^
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