Tyson

What a complicated person. As we all are, very complicated, but when someone is so in the spot light I think we tend to just get a caricature of the person, which I don't think anyone would disagree with. And this documentary is no exception, you still only get part of the story, and its from Mike Tyson's point of view.

He is a scared, sad person. Being incredibly strong and intimidating never seemed to be enough for him. Almost anyone going toe to toe with him would not only get knocked out right away, but he could hit someone hard enough to kill, easy. So how did he go from a fat kid in Brooklyn being beaten up and chased around to one of the best boxers ever? I think the answer is a simple one: Fear. He seems to at least in his own words be afraid of everything, and surprisingly other people. When someone needs to have 10 people in between them and the person they intend to hit that says a lot about someone power, if he wants to hit you, there better be a mob of people between you and him for you to even have a chance of getting out unscathed.

I feel sorry for him, he actually has a good reason to fear and distrust people. The one man in his life that even vaguely appeared to be a caring father figure was Constantine"Cus" D'Amato his first boxing coach, and seemingly the only one who cared for him and took nothing from him but perhaps some of his enthusiasm for life, died when he was a very young fighter. Tyson is stunted in so many ways it cant even fully be described. He thinks he is smart, he thinks he has a full grasp on the English language, and maybe he is smart, but it doesn't show. He desperately uses as many big words as he can think of and like Muhammad Ali tries to speak rhythmically and poetically, and maybe I'm to easy but some of his descriptions I found to be maybe not beautiful or mature, but genuine. To me his genuineness it what sold me on his character. He didn't seem to be lying about anything, I mean I don't necessarily believe him about being innocent of the rape charge, but he seemed to have no ill will towards the girl who made the claim and sent him to prison for 3 years. I think he did it, and he is a scary individual because of that, but behind the facade I see a very broken person. His make up is that of a smashed mirror hastily put back together.

Even if it is all a lie, then even that shows something about his personality. The fragments of him are very well brought through with the editing which consists a lot of having several images and clips of him playing at the same time while we hear audio from one of them, and occasionally a few. I also like the techniques they used in getting Tyson's story across, Tyson is the only one to speak, you hear no questions being asked or see no one around him, its just him and his version of his own story.

We hear a quote in the film about a small fire eventually becoming a raging inferno by feeding it what it needs, and it accurately describes him, the right people pushed the right buttons with him and turned him into an animal. The inferno seems to have gone out, there is a softness to his eyes now, and a certain calmness and I hope he is able to keep it like that. A strong personal documentary, 8/10 stars,

Director: James Toback

Narrator/Subject: Mike Tyson