Float Like A Butterfly

I was reminded today of a great film I saw years ago, which I highly recommend: "When We Were Kings." It's a boxing film, sort of, but you don't have to have any interest in boxing to really enjoy it. (I'm not a boxing fan at all.)

Even the story of how the film was made, after the footage languished for years as lawsuits filled the air, is interesting. But the film itself, about the Muhammed Ali-George Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" fight, is fascinating.

Here's the synopsis: Ali is, at 32, considered well past his prime as a fighter. Foreman is far from the smiling pitchman we see now: he's young, he's strong, he's angry and he's a ferocious fighter. But Don King, the boxing promoter, hasn't yet made a name for himself and is desperate to do so. The president/dictator of Zaire, Mobuto, is as well. He organizes a huge music festival built around the fight, to show off Zaire to the world, and puts up the money for the fight as well.

Ali, visiting villages and inviting folks to run and train with him, thoroughly charms the people of Zaire. Foreman, sullen, trains alone and keeps to himself.

On the day of the fight, every spectator in the place is screaming for Ali.In whatever language folks in Zaire speak, they're screaming themselves hoarse, "Ali, kill him! Ali, kill him."

In Ali's dressing room no one — no trainer, no corner man, no one — will even meet Ali's gaze. They know Ali is going to lose badly, humiliatingly. Ali could easily be the one killed, literally. Every spectator who knows nothing about boxing believes in Ali. Every member of Ali's team, who knows everything about boxing, doesn't.

But Ali knows something none of them do. And that something changes the fight and makes the movie close to incredible.

Trust me, it's worth the rental. Even though you have to suffer through George Plimpton. Lots of George Plimpton.