National Treasure

Nicolas Cage has run the gamut of the action film genre. He’s played the reluctant action hero in The Rock (1996), a cartoonish icon in Con Air (1997) and the amoral bad guy in Face/Off (1997). With National Treasure (2004) he added another variation to his repertoire — the non-violent problem solver – one of several pleasant surprises in this movie. Usually, you don’t see this kind of a protagonist in a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was known for cranking out R-rated fare like Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Bad Boys (1995). With Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), the busy producer began moving towards more family-friendly projects.

I’m a sucker for action/adventure movies with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) being my gateway drug. I just love seeing an action hero making his way through dangerous, exotic locales looking for some wealthy bit of treasure. Raiders spawned countless imitators, but nobody has been able to top what Steven Spielberg and George Lucas did with that film. Some have come close and I would argue that National Treasure comes pretty close. Unfairly trashed by critics as a Da Vinci Code rip-off (the book, not the film), it nevertheless connected with mainstream audiences, scoring decent enough sized numbers at the box office that a sequel was made three years later.

As a child, Benjamin Franklin Gates was told a story by his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) about an ancient valuable treasure brought over to North America by the Freemasons during the discovery of the New World. Over the years, the location of the vast treasure was moved around and ultimately lost as the people who knew it eventually died off. Now, only a few clues exist but they aren’t easy to find and decipher. Ben’s cynical father Patrick (Jon Voight) scoffs at this story, not wanting to see his son follow in his family’s footsteps. However, he grows up to be a world-class treasure hunter (Nicolas Cage) and has never forgotten his grandfather’s story. It has become a life-long obsession, handed down from generation to generation.

The trail of clues leads to a secret map hidden somewhere on the Declaration of Independence, but how can he gain access to it? His partner, Ian (Sean Bean), decides that the only way is to steal it, which goes against Gates’ code of honor. They part company on less than amicable terms — Ian tries to blow him up. Gates’ quest takes him to such diverse places as Washington, D.C., the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and Trinity Church in New York City. To help him achieve his goal, Gates enlists the help of Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) or rather he tries to con her so that they can look at the Declaration before Ian steals it. However, his story is more than a little far-fetched so, he decides to steal it in order to protect it with the help of his trusty sidekick (and comic relief) Riley Poole (Justin Bartha). In the ensuing chaos, Dr. Chase is caught in the middle and shanghaied by Gates and Riley. If that wasn’t bad enough, a determined FBI agent by the name of Sadusky (Harvey Keitel) is on their trail. Now, Gates has to stay one step ahead of the law and Ian.

National Treasure differentiates between the good guys and the bad guys in the methods that they employ. Ian and his men carry guns and use physical force to get what they want while Gates uses his brains, skills and high-tech gadgets to achieve his goals. For example, he figures out one clue using a tobacco pipe found hidden in a ship buried under snow and ice at the Arctic Circle. It is a refreshing idea for an action/adventure movie in a genre that is often saturated with excessive gunplay. It is also nice to see an action movie propelled by a story and not a series of action sequences. There is a lot of problem-solving instead of relying on mindless action. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have its share of exciting sequences because it does, but it doesn’t overcompensate. For example, Gates has the physical prowess to escape the aforementioned ship when Ian betrays him by blowing it up. There is a balance. Characters don’t always resort to violence. In this cat and mouse game, they have to use their wits if they are going to be successful.

At times, National Treasure wants to be a contemporary update of the Indiana Jones films. Like that character, Benjamin Gates isn’t in it for the money, but for a genuine love of history and the thrill of solving a centuries-old mystery. There is a surprisingly entertaining mix of action and humor. It doesn’t rely on too many clichés of the genre and tries not to insult one’s intelligence. Nicolas Cage does a good job of conveying Gates’ passion for uncovering and protecting rare historical artifacts. He’s not merely a man of action, but a passionate student of history who gets wistful over a key line from the Declaration of Independence. This is Cage is in restrained mode as he keeps his esoteric acting flourishes to a minimum.

Justin Bartha is hacker extraordinaire, Riley Poole and he plays well off of Cage, providing comic relief with the occasional well-timed one-liner, but he wisely doesn’t act too goofy. Christopher Plummer, as always, is excellent in a small role, utilizing his theatrical training to captivate the young Gates (and us) with his story about the Freemasons’ treasure. Plummer knows when to put just the right amount of dramatic spin on a key word or phrase. He is able to take what could have been dry, exposition dialogue and make it interesting. Sean Bean plays yet another bad buy, but a very smart one despite always being one step behind Gates. He is the Belloq to Gates’ Indy, commanding vast resources, but he wants the treasure for all the wrong reasons. Jon Voight is just fine as Gates’ cantankerous father who disapproves of what he sees as his son’s foolish quest for a treasure that probably doesn’t exist.

Director Jon Turteltaub orchestrates several exciting action sequences, including car and rooftop chases, a treacherous journey into a subterranean crypt and the theft of the Declaration of Independence as an exciting heist sequence with an elegant black tie gala as the backdrop (recalling the opening sequence in the first Mission: Impossible film). It is a tense affair even though we know how it’s all going to turn out.

In 1998, Disney marketing executive Oren Aviv and his friend Charles Segars came up with the idea for a movie about a man forced to steal the Declaration of Independence in order to keep it out of the hands of men convinced that it contained a secret treasure map. They developed it with screenwriter Jim Kouf and brought it to director Jon Turteltaub and his producing partner Christina Steinberg. In 2001, Jerry Bruckheimer agreed to produce it. He had wanted to work with Turteltaub for years. Kouf spent 9-10 months researching the Declaration of Independence and the legends that surround it.

Several drafts and writers into the process, Cormac and Marianne Wibberley were brought in to think up a treasure for the characters to pursue. After doing some research, they developed a connection between the Freemasons, who were already referenced in the script, and the mythical Knights Templar. After the Wibberleys worked on the script, it went through even more hands, including Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who were brought in by Bruckheimer after their successful work on the first Pirates of the Caribbean film.

National Treasure received a critical hammering from reviewers. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and felt that it was “so silly that the Monty Python version could use the same screenplay, line for line.” USA Today gave it one-and-a-half out of four stars and Mike Clark wrote, “The most you can say about this boo-boo is to note its fitting mix of flaccid execution and stupefying premise. Is this really the time in history moviegoers want to see the purloined Declaration tossed around and nearly run over by cars as if it were a receipt from Taco Bell?” In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, “If National Treasure mattered at all, you might call it a national disgrace, but this piece of flotsam is so inconsequential that it amounts to little more than a piece of Hollywood accounting.”

Entertainment Weekly gave it a “C” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “What is only revealed in time, as the movie plays out its exceedingly busy but uninvolving twists, is that the character of a scruffy computer nerd, played with might-as-well-enjoy-myself charm by little-known actor Justin Bartha, steals the picture from glossier players.” In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Carina Chocano wrote, “National Treasure seems part of Disney's new strategy to produce what reporters love to call ‘edgier family fare’ (i.e., movies that parents and kids whose teeth have grown in might enjoy together) so National Treasure is as doggedly hokey and ham-handed as a Disneyland ride – specifically that Indiana Jones one where the ball comes rolling at you on tracks.” The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter wrote, “National Treasure does lose its way toward the end, where the climax seems to take place in either the leftover set from The Goonies or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Note to Hollywood: Huge underground wooden structures aren't that interesting anymore.”

Regardless of critical opinion at the time, I found the first National Treasure movie something of a pleasant surprise – an inoffensive action/adventure romp for the entire family that proved to be a bonafide box office hit. It also gave Cage a much-needed boost after a string of lackluster films. To be honest, he did little of merit since so it makes sense that he would sign on for a sequel. Sure enough, National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) was a commercial success thus ensuring a cushy paycheck for Cage to last a few more films.

When Benjamin Gates learns that his great-grandfather may have masterminded the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, he and his father decide to clear their ancestor’s name. To add insult to injury, his girlfriend, Abigail Chase, has kicked him out of their house and he’s now living with his dad. So, Ben enlists the help of Riley Poole to decipher a hidden code on John Wilkes Booth’s long lost diary page. The code hints at a treasure map located on one of the Statue of Liberties in existence.

Meanwhile, the Feds, led by Agent Sadusky, the same one who went after Ben in the first movie, investigate Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), the source of the diary page. It turns out that he’s a black marketer who is also interested in the map because it will lead to the Lost City of Gold. The scope of Book of Secrets is much larger as Ben and company follows a trail of clues that takes them to Paris, London (where they break into Buckingham Palace), and Mount Rushmore. Also thrown into the mix is Ben’s mother (Helen Mirren) who helps her son decode an important clue and rekindle the romance with her estranged husband.

The cast acquits themselves just fine, playing their parts like consummate pros so that it doesn’t seem like they’re phoning it in, which is certainly the temptation for a movie like this one. To their credit, the cast looks like they are actually having fun traversing the globe looking for long lost treasure. As with the first movie, there is a good mix of American history, action and problem solving as it chugs along like the efficient Jerry Bruckheimer production that it is, complete with anonymous, workman-like direction from Jon Turteltaub. It is the kind of family entertainment that has something for pretty much everyone even if it comes across as Indiana Jones-lite. Still, it’s a pleasant enough time waster – one that you’ll probably forget soon after the credits end.

The first National Treasure movie is a throwback to an old school style of action/adventure movie fused with a treasure hunting caper story that owes more to Indiana Jones than Jason Bourne. Gates isn’t just trying to recover the treasure. He wants to restore his family’s name, which has been tarnished because of their belief in a treasure that no one thinks exists. So, there is a redemptive element that is an added bonus. If anything, National Treasure is saddled with a needlessly convoluted series of puzzles that our heroes must solve in order to uncover the treasure, but I never felt lost or didn't know what was going on, thanks in large part to the cast, in particular Cage and Bartha who sold it very well and kept things moving. This is out flat-out entertaining and engaging popcorn movie that should appeal to history buffs and action fans alike.


SOURCES

Bowles, Scott. "Bruckheimer Digs National Treasure." USA Today. February 6, 2004.

Koch, Neal. "Disney Rethinks a Staple: Family Films but Decidedly Not Rated G." The New York Times. October 19, 2004.

National Treasure Production Notes. 2004.

Olsen, Mark. "Writing Partners Get Their Days in the Sun." Los Angeles Times. November 14, 2004.

Mission: Impossible

A lot was riding on Mission: Impossible (1996) for Tom Cruise. Not only was it the first film he produced (in addition to starring), it was also his first attempt to kick start his own film franchise. What better way to do this than resurrecting a classic television show from the 1960s? Cruise, always the calculated risk taker, wisely surrounded himself with talented people: Robert Towne (among others) co-wrote the screenplay, Brian De Palma directing and the likes of Jon Voight, Jean Reno, and Vanessa Redgrave in the cast. At the time, the James Bond franchise was in a transitional period and didn’t produce a new film until the following year. Despite a well-publicized troubled production, rife with clashing egos, Mission: Impossible was a huge box office success spawning a franchise that continues to produce installments.

Jim Phelps (Voight) leads his group of IMF agents on a mission to intercept Alexander Golitsyn (Marcel Iures), a traitorous attaché who has stolen a list of code names for all of the CIA operatives in Europe. He plans to steal the other half of the list with their real names from an embassy in Prague. One by one, members of the team are killed off by mysterious assailants. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) survives the bungled mission and rendezvous later with his superior, Kittridge (a wonderfully twitchy Henry Czerny) in a restaurant. Over the course of their conversation, Ethan realizes that he was set-up and that another team was shadowing his own. Kittridge reveals that the embassy debacle was actually an elaborate scheme to expose a traitor within the IMF organization and he believes that it is Ethan and that he also killed his entire team.

De Palma conveys Ethan’s growing sense of paranoia and panic in this scene through increasingly skewed camera angles as the magnitude of what has happened begins to sink in. Henry Czerny plays the scene beautifully as Kittridge talks to Ethan as a parent might scold a child. The conversation between them culminates with a daring escape as Ethan causes a large aquarium to explode, using the ensuing chaos to make his getaway. This scene was Cruise's idea. There were 16 tons of water in all of the tanks but there was a concern that when they blew, a lot of glass would fly around. De Palma tried the sequence with a stuntman but it did not look convincing and he asked Cruise to do it despite the possibility that the actor could have drowned.

Ethan regroups at a safe house where he meets Claire (Emmanuelle Beart), another surviving member of his team. He must find out who set him up and retrieve the list. To aid him in his endeavor, Ethan enlists the help of Claire and two other disavowed agents Luther Stickell and Franz Krieger (Ving Rhames and Jean Reno). The film really gets going once Cruise hooks up with Reno and Rhames (playing an ace hacker no less) and they decide to break into CIA headquarters for what is Mission: Impossible’s most famous set piece. This impressively staged sequence is cheekily dubbed the “Mount Everest of hacks” by Ethan and is masterfully orchestrated by De Palma. The heart of this sequence is nearly soundless, proving that one doesn’t need a ton of explosions and gunfire to have an exciting, tension-filled action sequence (Michael Bay take note).

It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the film, Ethan is not the leader of the IMF team but rather Phelps is the point man. It isn’t until most of the team is killed off during the Prague embassy mission that he’s forced to go it alone. He even tries to form a new team with Franz and Luther but even that doesn’t stick with the former turning out to be a traitor, leaving only Ethan and Luther at the end. The film is an epic test to see if Ethan has what it takes to survive on his own and have the ability to complete the mission with limited resources. Obviously, he is successful which paves the way for subsequent sequels where he’s the team leader.

Initially, Cruise plays Ethan as a cocky upstart not unlike his characters in Top Gun (1986) and The Color of Money (1986) but that bravado is stripped away when everything he knows is taken away from him. He’s running scared and after his meeting with Kittridge, increasingly paranoid. After being disavowed by his own government, who can he trust? Cruise is excellent in these early scenes as Ethan is in a sweaty panic, trying to figure out what happened. That being said, in some scenes, the actor has a tendency to over-emote, like when Ethan is reunited with Claire after their entire team has been wiped out. Sleep deprived and paranoid, Ethan yells at Claire, “They’re dead! They’re all dead!” It’s an embarrassing bit of overacting on Cruise’s part but the actor redeems himself somewhat later on in a cheeky bit of acting when he cons Reno over a CD of vital information through a clever display of sleight of hand.

De Palma constantly plays with our perception, showing us the Prague mission three times: once as it happens, then from Ethan’s point-of-view as he recounts it to Kittridge and then at the end from Phelps’ perspective where we learn what actually happened. The director pulls out his usual stylistic bag of tricks: the P.O.V. tracking shots, the Dutch angles, the diopter shots, but unlike The Untouchables (1987), for example, it feels subdued perhaps supporting the stories of behind-the-scenes meddling that diluted the purity of his trademark style. It is a testimony to his prowess behind the camera that Mission: Impossible still works as well as it does and this is due in large part to bravura sequences like the CIA HQ heist, which is one of De Palma’s most memorably orchestrated sequences.

As far back as 1982, Paramount Pictures owned the rights to the television series and had tried for years to make a film version but had failed to come up with a viable treatment. Cruise was a fan of the show since he was young and in 1993 thought that it would be a good idea for a film despite the discouragement of those around him – that is until The Fugitive (1993) came out. The actor chose Mission: Impossible to be the first project of his new production company and convinced Paramount to put up a $70 million budget. Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner worked on a story with filmmaker Sydney Pollack for a few months and then the actor saw and liked certain sequences from Carlito’s Way (1993) and hired Brian De Palma to direct. After the commercial success of The Untouchables (1987), the director had box office duds with the likes of Casualties of War (1989) and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and was desperate for another hit. “Did I take it hard? Absolutely. When you spend two years making a movie and no one sees it…it hurts. You take it personally.” Even Raising Cain (1992) and Carlito’s Way didn’t make as much money as he’d hoped and he thought, “’Well, I’d better change everything and go back to Untouchables.’ Take a T.V. piece people were familiar with and make something new out of it.”

The screenwriting team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) wrote a draft and then Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List) was next in line, but he could only commit for six weeks. He and De Palma hammered out a storyline in that time. “I mean, going over every way to go about this story, staring at each other across the coffee table until we came up a scenario,” the director said. Zaillian gave way to De Palma’s go-to scribe, David Koepp (The Shadow) who was reportedly paid $1 million to rewrite it and had quit smoking before starting work on it only to be driven to start up again while writing it. According to one project source, there were problems with dialogue and story development. However, the basic plot remained intact. Koepp worked on it until he had to start making his director debut Trigger Effect (1996) and this prompted Cruise to bring in his own go-to writer, Robert Towne to work on the script. According to De Palma, the goal of the script was to "constantly surprise the audience.”

Amazingly, even with all of these talented screenwriters working on it, the film went into pre-production without a script that the filmmakers wanted to use. De Palma designed the action sequences but neither Koepp nor Towne were satisfied with the story that would make these sequences take place. Towne helped organize a beginning, middle and end to hang story details on while De Palma and Koepp worked on the plot. According to Towne, “On any given day you’d think it was disaster. But after while, you knew it was working.” Koepp admitted that he and De Palma discovered separate plot holes in the script and they knew “that the plot would beat us, we were never going to beat it.”

The director convinced Cruise to set the first act of the film in Prague, a city rarely seen in Hollywood films at the time. Reportedly, studio executives wanted to keep the film’s budget in the $40-$50 million range but Cruise wanted a “big, showy action piece” that took the budget up to the $70 million range. Rumors circulated that Cruise and De Palma did not get along during filming on location in London and Prague. One rumor had the actor holding a stopwatch on the director during filming. Both men denied these rumors. Cruise said, “I mean there was pressure, there’s always pressure…But I think it’s, like, tension to me is when you hear stories about two people not talking at all, okay?” Koepp said, “Yep, no shortage of opinions on this movie. No one was going to roll over and let the other’s creative opinion rule the day.”

Cruise was a quick study and would observe his stunt double at work and then do the stunts himself. This included a flip on top of a train with a 175-mile-per-hour wind in his face, outrunning an exploding aquarium full of water, and the now famous dialogue-free sequence where Ethan breaks into CIA headquarters hanging upside down while using a computer, which was a direct lift from Jules Dassin’s 1964 heist film, Topkapi. While filming it, Cruise’s head kept hitting the floor as he was off balance. He put a bunch of English pound coins in his shoes and this provided the balance he needed.

The film’s last act was the source of most of production’s tension with De Palma sending last minute faxes to Koepp and Towne begging for revisions to the script. The director had read Towne’s original ending and hated it. “Bob thought we could resolve the movie with a character revelation in the boxcar, leaning toward a Maltese Falcon type of ending.” De Palma came to Cruise with the high-speed chase scene on top of the train. He knew it would add millions to the budget but felt the film “needed this visceral ending to work,” and Cruise agreed.

The actor wanted to use the famously fast French train the TGV but rail authorities did not want any part of the stunt performed on their trains. When that was no longer a problem, the track was not available. De Palma visited railroads on two continents trying to get permission. Cruise took the train owners out to dinner and the next day they were allowed to use it. For the actual sequence, the actor wanted wind that was so powerful it could knock him off the train. Cruise had difficulty finding the right machine to create the wind velocity that would look visually accurate before remembering a simulator he used while training as a skydiver. The only machine of its kind in Europe was located and acquired. Cruise had it produce winds up to 175 miles-per-hour so it would distort his face. Most of the sequence, however, was filmed on a stage against a blue screen for later digitizing by the visual effects team at Industrial Light & Magic.

The filmmakers delivered Mission: Impossible on time and under budget with Cruise doing most of his own stunts. Initially, there was a sophisticated opening sequence that introduced a love triangle between Phelps, his wife Claire and Ethan that was removed as it took the test audience "out of the genre," according to De Palma. There were rumors that Cruise and De Palma did not get along and they were fueled by the director excusing himself at the last moment from scheduled media interviews before the film's theatrical release.

Despite the large revenues, the film received a mixed reaction from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "This is a movie that exists in the instant, and we must exist in the instant to enjoy it.” In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden addressed the film's convoluted plot: "If that story doesn't make a shred of sense on any number of levels, so what? Neither did the television series, in which basic credibility didn't matter so long as its sci-fi popular mechanics kept up the suspense.” USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and said that it was "stylish, brisk but lacking in human dimension despite an attractive cast, the glass is either half-empty or half-full here, though the concoction goes down with ease.”

Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, "What is not present in Mission: Impossible (which, aside from the title, sound-track quotations from the theme song and self-destructing assignment tapes, has little to do with the old TV show) is a plot that logically links all these events or characters with any discernible motives beyond surviving the crisis of the moment.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “The problem isn't that the plot is too complicated; it's that each detail is given the exact same nagging emphasis. Intriguing yet mechanistic, jammed with action yet as talky and dense as a physics seminar, the studiously labyrinthine Mission: Impossible grabs your attention without quite tickling your imagination.”

The film’s overriding theme is one of deception, a world where nothing is what it seems. The prologue has a disguised Ethan trick a captive man into giving up a name of a key operative. This is only one of many disguises (created by make-up legend Rob Bottin) he adopts throughout the film in order to obtain information or trick an opponent. The prologue also cleverly serves as a metaphor for filmmaking. The spy trade, like cinema, is all about creating an illusion and pretending to be something that you’re not. In addition, several members of his team are not who they appear to be as well and this keeps the audience guessing as to who is “good” and who is “bad.”

The common complaint leveled at Mission: Impossible was that it was hard to follow, fueling speculation that De Palma’s original cut was non-linear in nature and that Cruise re-cut it after disastrous test screenings. Regardless, if one is paying attention to what is happening and what is being said (or not being said, in some cases) it isn’t difficult to navigate the film’s narrative waters. The script is lean and unusually well-written for a big budget action blockbuster, which is quite amazing when you consider how many writers worked on it. Make no mistake about it; this is a paycheck film for De Palma. However, being the consummate professional that he is, the veteran director still delivers an entertaining film with some nice stylistic flourishes. What more could you ask for from this kind of film?

SOURCES

Brennan, Judy. "Cruise's Mission." Entertainment Weekly. December 16, 1995.

Friend, Tom. “Man with a Mission.” Premiere. June 1996.

Kroll, Jack. “Mission Accomplished.” Newsweek. May 27, 1996.

Penfield III, Wilder. "The Impossible Dream." Toronto Sun. May 19, 1996.

Portman, Jamie. "Cruise's Mission Accomplished." The Montreal Gazette. May 18, 1996.

Green, Tom. "Handling an impossible task – A Mission complete with intrigue." USA Today. May 22, 1996.

Michael Mann Week: Ali

This post originally appeared at the Film for the Soul blog as part of The Year 2001 project.
Ever since Ali was released in 2001, I have felt that it has been one of Michael Mann’s most under-appreciated films. It received decidedly mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office. While Will Smith was praised for his impressive physical transformation into legendary boxer Muhammed Ali, the film itself was criticized for revealing nothing new about the man. Herein lies the problem that Mann faced: how do you shed new light on one of the most documented historical figures of the 20th century? His angle on the material was to look inwards.

Proposals for an Ali biopic had been around since the early 1990s when producer and one-time business partner of the boxer, Paul Ardaji, pitched the idea to the man on his 50th birthday. Ali gave the project his blessing and financing quickly fell into place. A number of scripts were written by the likes of Gregory Allen Howard (Remember the Titans) and Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson (Nixon), but they all failed to please the powers that be. The project bounced around various studios for years as executives tried to decide who should make it, who should star in it, and would it even make a profit? In 1991, Oliver Stone met with Ali about making a film about his life but the collaboration ended when the director refused to share creative control. In 1992, Ali’s best friend and personal photographer Howard Bingham and Ali’s wife Lonnie got together with Ardaji. Gregory Allen Howard’s take on Ali was delivered in 1996. His angle was that the key to the boxer’s life was his relationship with his father, who ignored him.

When Will Smith met Ali in 1997, the boxer asked the actor to play him in the film. Smith was flattered but said no. He was not ready and too intimidated for such a demanding role. The actor almost did it when Barry Sonnenfeld agreed to direct. Both men had worked together on the Men in Black films and Wild Wild West (1999). Thankfully, their version never saw the light of day. After he turned 30, Smith realized that he had to make the decision about playing Ali. However, when no one could settle on a script, Sonnenfeld dropped out. There were several more rewrites and directors, including Curtis Hanson who expressed interest. Smith was ready to give up on the project.

It then came down to Spike Lee or Michael Mann to fill the director's chair left empty by Sonnenfeld. Sony Pictures, the studio bankrolling the film, was faced with a $100+ million budget and went with Mann who had just received several Academy Award nominations and all kinds of critical praise for The Insider (1999). Upset, Lee voiced his anger through a friend in The New York Post: "only a black man could do justice to the Cassius Clay story," he was reported as saying. Mann responded that he "wanted the film to come from the point of view of the main character, Muhammed Ali. I'm not interested in showing a white man's idea of how someone suffered racism. The perspective of the film has to be African-American." When asked why he did not pick a black director Ali said that he wanted the best qualified person regardless of color, and his wife said, “Muhammad didn’t want it to be a movie just for black audiences. He wanted it to be a movie for all cultures and all people.”

When Mann was approached to direct he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to tackle such challenging subject matter but was sure of one thing; he did not want to make a docudrama or idealize Ali's life. After meeting with Ali and his wife, they told him that they did not want “a teary Hallmark-greeting version of Muhammad Ali ... What they didn’t want I didn’t want,” Mann remembers. The director liked Rivele and Wilkinson’s screenplay but rejected their flashback structure and their use of Ali’s 1978 fight, the “Thrilla in Manila,” as the present frame of the story. Mann felt that Ali’s 1974 fight in Zaire was more significant. He was also not interested in spelling things out for the audience: “I wanted to insert you into the stream of this man’s life, orient you without doing it in a blatant way with exposition.” Ironically, this is what would scare off a lot of people.

Smith's agent arranged a meeting with Mann that changed his attitude towards the film. According to the actor, it was "the clear picture he had of the road from Will Smith to Muhammed Ali. He explained it in a way that made it seem, in my mind at least, not so utterly impossible, just marginally improbable." Smith and Mann agreed that the film’s focus should be on ten turbulent years of Ali's life, from 1964 to 1974. The director set the film during these years because "that formation of everything by '74 is the beginning of what is now culturally in the United States." Mann identified Ali with the spirit of change that occurred in the 1960s. "He consistently defied the establishment and its conventions, and we loved him for it." Ali led such a colorful, eventful life that a focused story was crucial to the film. Mann said in an interview, “It would be catastrophic to divert into every interesting story. Everything this guy does is fascinating. I could have made an entire movie about Ali's relation to women. Music, Cadillac convertibles and women. It would have been great.”

By February 23, 2000, Mann signed on to the film and went to work transforming Will Smith into Ali. Smith remembers that Mann created the "Muhammad Ali Course Syllabus” that began with a study of the boxer’s physical attributes: “learning to run how he ran, to eat the food he ate, spar the way he sparred. Essentially creating the physical life and physical appearance of Muhammad Ali.” From there, Smith moved on to the mental and emotional aspects and finally the man’s spirituality. Boxer trainer-choreographer Darrell Foster spent a year training Smith. Foster was Sugar Ray Leonard's conditioning coach when the boxer turned pro. According to Foster, the key to becoming Ali was "looking for specific movements. Hand speed, ring generalship, how he made guys miss. Will had to become Ali, because you can't demonstrate those moves through choreography." Foster created a high-carb, high-protein diet for Smith and had him run in combat boots through snow in the thin air of Aspen, Colorado for ten months before the start of filming. His training schedule consisted of five miles of roadwork starting at 5:30 am, in the gym at 11:30 am, six days a week for three hours of ring work and weight training, watching fight films at 3 pm, and weight training in the evening. Smith put on 35 pounds of pure muscle in four months and went from bench-pressing 175 pounds to being able to press a very impressive 365 pounds. The finishing touch was being fitted with a hairpiece and a prosthetic nose.

For the fights, Foster started Smith on the basics: balance, footwork and defense. Then, he worked with the actor on the offensive aspects: a mix of overhand rights, hooks and upper cuts. Foster remembers that Smith "thought he knew how to fight because he had some street fights. But really, he couldn't fight at all." Smith worked on his hand and eye reflexes in order to perform eleven of Ali's signature moves. Smith spent days studying film of Ali, including early footage shot when he was an Olympic boxing champion to interviews with Howard Cosell. Much of the material, unseen for years, was supplied by Leon Gast, a documentary filmmaker who made When We Were Kings (1996), a celebrated and acclaimed documentary about Ali’s championship bout with George Foreman. Smith also took classes in Islamic studies at the University of California.

The focus on the years 1964 to 1974 are arguably the most fascinating ones of Ali’s life because they are so rife with dramatic possibilities. It was during this period that Ali became the World Boxing Champion after beating Sonny Liston, then lost it when he refused to serve as a foot soldier in the Vietnam War, and finally reclaimed the Championship Title after beating the odds-on favorite, George Foreman in Zaire. It was also a time of great social and political upheaval in the United States with the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Finally, Ali also shows the man’s private side: his numerous wives and failed marriages, and his friendships with Malcolm X and Howard Cosell.

Mann immediately immerses the audience in the time period with a montage of footage that features Sam Cooke performing in front of a live audience juxtaposed with Ali jogging alone at night and being harassed briefly by the police. Mann then goes into a montage of Ali training and two boxers fighting with Ali watching. Mann fractures time by also intercutting footage of Ali as a child witnessing the brutality of racism and its effects as he sees a newspaper article about the vicious beating of Emmet Till. The film then cuts back to a mature Ali sitting in on a lecture by Malcolm X. The entire montage is masterfully edited to the beats of a medley of Sam Cooke songs. This opening sequence establishes the Impressionistic take that Mann is to going to have on Ali’s life. It is also one of his most complex, layered opening credits sequence because he shifts time frames and presents us with all of these apparently unconnected images without explaining them. This is done on purpose in order to establish a mood, give an impression of the look and feel of the film and to set up that we are seeing the world through Ali’s eyes.

The fight scenes are covered from every conceivable angle as Mann cuts back and forth from shots outside and inside the ring. The first shot we get of the ring is a close-up of the red ropes and in Mann’s films this color signifies danger. There is the potential for Ali to not just lose the fight but possibly his life. This is a risk every time a boxer steps into the ring. In the Liston fight, Mann alternates between camerawork inside the ring, with tight and close point-of-view angles so that we are right in the ring with the boxers, and shots just outside of the ring but still close to the fighters. This gives the fight scenes a real visceral impact and immediacy that has not been seen since Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980). The Liston fight also shows how Ali could work a crowd of boxing fans just as well and in just the same way as the crowd of journalists before the fight.

Unlike most boxing films, Mann wanted to get inside the ring in order "to bring you inside the strategy and tactics, to bring you into the round as far as I could." To this end, Mann would often be in the ring with the fighters with a very small digital camera. To achieve the most realistic fight scenes possible, Mann really had Smith and the other boxers hit each other. The director recalled one such incident: “When James Toney as Joe Frazier knocks Will down, we did three takes of that — every single one of those left hooks he connected. When Will stands up on the one that's in the film, that wobble is not acting — you can tell how shaky he is.”

Mann also uses a cool, blue color to suggest intimacy and does so in the scene where Ali and Sonji (Jada Pinkett Smith), who would become his first wife, dance in a nightclub. They are close together, flirting with each other as Mann drenches the scene in blue much like he did with Neil McCauley entering his house in Heat (1995) and Will and Molly making love in Manhunter (1986). Ali is temporarily in an area of safety and love but this will change very soon.

After an interview with legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell (Jon Voight), Ali’s life takes a turn for the worse as he refuses to be inducted in the Army and is arrested. He then denounces the war in an interview and is subsequently labeled as being unpatriotic. He is stripped of his boxing title as Heavyweight Champion of the World, his boxing license and his passport. Like Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider, Ali is threatened by the powers that be for telling the truth and being his own man. It becomes obvious that this is a war of attrition in an effort to bleed Ali dry financially and threaten him with five years in jail. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the Temple of Islam suspends him just like they did to Malcolm X.

Cosell and Ali meet up and the veteran broadcaster, conscious of how bad off his friend is but not acknowledging it publicly, puts him on television despite network pressure. Cosell allows Ali to speak his peace about his ban and dazzles everyone again with his showmanship. It really is a testimony to Cosell that he did this. When everyone else had abandoned Ali, the T.V. personality stuck by him and used his considerable clout to put him back in the public eye. This interview is the turning point for Ali who wins a fight. Only then does Herbert and the Temple of Islam come back to him but Ali makes it clear that they do not own him. His eyes have been opened and he now knows just how much he can trust them.

Ali culminates with the legendary Rumble in the Jungle where Ali fought George Foreman in Zaire. Ali was not the favorite going in as Foreman was younger, stronger and the Champ. Mann, again, hints at the potential danger of this opponent when we see Foreman training, pounding a punching bag with powerful hits all with a greenish filter, a sign of peril in a Mann film. Sure enough, during this period Ali drives away his second wife (Nona Gaye) who does not like his relationship with the Temple of Islam because she feels that they are exploiting him. While still married to her, Ali becomes interested in a female journalist (Michael Michele) from Los Angeles who is in Zaire doing a profile on the boxer. This relationship effectively ruins his second marriage and Mann does not gloss over this showing that Ali was clearly in the wrong.

This portion of the film was shot in Johannesburg, South Africa and from there, an hour journey to Maputo, Mozambique because Mann liked the architecture in Maputo. In 1974, the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle" bout between Ali and George Foreman took place in Kinshasa, Zaire which had since become the Democratic Republic of Congo, but there was too much political unrest for Mann to shoot there in 2000. Associate producer Gusmano Gesaretti remembers that Mann fell in love with the architecture in Maputo. It was predominantly built by the Portuguese during the middle to later part of the century with buildings done in Art Deco-style curves and arches alongside others with straight lines in the block style of the 1960s. All were very aged and weather-beaten and looked very much the way Kinshasa was in the 1970s.

The "Rumble in the Jungle" was filmed over five weeks in Machava Stadium, five kilometers northwest of Maputo. The stadium was used to host large international soccer tournaments but had fallen into disrepair — there wasn't even any electricity. The production spent $100,000 repairing and upgrading the 64,000-seat capacity stadium. They structurally engineered and replicated a ring and canopy that was 40 feet high, 82 feet wide and weighed over 40 tons. Over 10,000 extras were needed for the scene where Ali makes his entrance into the stadium. Fliers were distributed in Maputo inviting people to watch the filming. The production also cast 2,000 extras that would be costumed and fill seats on the floor around the ring. On the night of the scene, over 30,000 people showed up.

Known mostly for mindless, yet entertaining action films like Bad Boys (1995) and Independence Day (1996), Will Smith was not exactly most people’s first choice to play Muhammad Ali. However, Smith shows that he has the capacity for more substantial work with Six Degrees of Separation (1993) but he had never attempted anything as challenging as this project. Smith captures Ali’s distinctive speech patterns, especially his flamboyant, larger-than-life public persona. Like Anthony Hopkins before him in Nixon (1995), Smith does not look exactly like the actual person he is playing. Instead, he manages to capture the essence and the spirit of the man. He also does a good job of conveying Ali’s conflict between his loyalty to Islam and to his family and friends. Smith peels back the layers to show that there was so much more than Ali’s flashy public side. For example, most people only saw Ali and Cosell as antagonists, but this was only for show. In fact, they were good friends and the sportscaster was willing to help him out in any way possible.

Did Mann meet with much studio interference? "Oh, I’m sure the studio would have wanted a different movie altogether. They'd have wanted it PG-13 as opposed to R-rated, which means you can't say 'motherfucker.' That would have added another $20m to the box office." Mann did have to worry about an escalating budget. Originally set at $100 million, it had risen into the neighborhood of $109 million. It made Sony so nervous that they shut down the production for a week in the autumn of 2000 until Mann and Smith agreed to trim some of the production costs and assume partial financial responsibility for budget overruns. The studio also brought in foreign investors who would distribute the film overseas.

Ali received decidedly mixed reviews. Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “It does not brutally impose itself on the audience as so many big, riskily expensive films do ... A thoughtful epic is both a rarity and an oxymoron. But that’s what Ali is, and you can’t help being drawn sympathetically into its hero’s struggle for mastery of himself and his era.” In his review for The New York Times, Elvis Mitchell wrote, “The script has been developed to give Mr. Smith the opportunity to burrow inside Ali ... Mr. Smith captures Ali’s musicality, pausing in midsyllable while ranting and exhaling to punch things up and turn even a joke into something operatic.” In his review for the Daily News, Jack Mathews wrote, “More problematic is the tonal switch from public to private Ali. Smith lowers his voice to an occasionally inaudible level, and while attempting to show Ali drawing inside himself, the actor virtually disappears.”

Rick Groen, in his review for the Globe and Mail, wrote, “The fights scenes look as realistic as any ever staged for the camera, equal to and at times even better than Scorsese’s celebrated work in Raging Bull.” In his review for the Toronto Star, Geoff Pevere wrote, “Mann offers this defining decade in Ali’s life as series of almost musically composed fleeting impressions.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Yet for everything it gets right, Ali, following its superb first hour, begins to lose the vision, clarity, and structure necessary to bring its hero into full focus. Mann never quite comes to terms with the contradiction at the heart of Muhammad Ali – this regal narcissist who revels in his victories, his beauty, and his appetites yet who worships at the shrine of a religious sect that demands puritanical fealty.”

While Will Smith was praised for his impressive physical transformation into legendary boxer Muhammed Ali, the film itself was criticized for revealing nothing new about the man. Herein lies the problem that Mann and company faced: how do you shed new light on one of the most documented historical figures of the 20th Century? Ali eschews the traditional docudrama for a more impressionistic take on the man and life. Mann’s film may not say anything new about the famous boxer, but it does depict an exciting ten years of his life in a masterful and richly evocative fashion. It’s a surprisingly soulful take on Ali and an excellent addition to Mann’s impressive body of work.