Synopsis
A documentary of the 1974 heavyweight championship bout in Zaire, “The Rumble in the Jungle,” between champion George Foreman and underdog challenger Muhammad Ali.
Neptune King of the Sea
The fight is extraordinary, the film focuses on the build up and in its own way pretty fascinating too, the definitive story of one of the greatest underdog stories. You have Ali the legend not given much chance against the wrecking ball that is George Foreman. Experience against youth. The documentary uses archive footage and is so well put together with an inspired choice of music. The build up the the fight is slow and detailed, by the time you get to the 1st round you can almost feel the electricity in the stadium. The documentary is warts and all talking about both fighters and the questionable the political stance of fighting in a country guilty of crimes against its own people, overall however you do feel its Ali’s tale. Always enjoyable, a fitting tribute to everything great about both boxers and boxing in general.
Rating: I am the Greatest
Chip
Viewing Beverage: Pepsi
Was pleasantly surprised to find that this boxing documentary has hardly any boxing. Instead the film mostly focuses on the political and logistical background to the classic Ali – Foreman fight, it didn’t make me like the sport any more but the build up was pretty interesting.
6 lean mean grilling machines out of 10.
Pinbot
Unlike many of my Team Flicky shipmates, I know nothing about boxing other than how to avoid it. To try and change that, I chose this film as it had received some great reviews and I rather like a documentary.
It was very heavily focused on Ali rather than Foreman and it’s not hard to see why. The guy is charisma personified and it was great to see his many sessions of rapid-fire trash talking.
However, the film was perhaps more interested in the culture and politics surrounding the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ than on the actual fight. As a consequence it was surprisingly very thin on actual boxing. There’s a lot of great period footage, but there’s so much filler to go along with it. The actual ‘main event’ itself appearing after an hour of build up. And then it felt like edited highlights.
If boxing is your thang, then I’m sure this would be fascinating. There’s undoubtedly some good stuff in there, but I must confess I found it a bit dull and unfocused and I zoned out through a lot of it.
Onward to some actual boxing!
A George Foreman Grill out of ten.
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