Thrilla in Manila

This documentary told a sad but great story. The people who were interviewed were compelling and entertaining to listen to. These other reviewers are upset cause it makes Ali look bad. Ali was great, intelligent and charismatic but he was also a bully and sometimes racist. People are complaining that this documentary is one sided. The filmmakers have a right to an opinion and choose a side. It's an important story to tell and one that is rarely told. Do these people just want another documentary praising Ali? He wasn't perfect. He was an a-hole at times and Joe Frazier deserved a lot more credit and respect. By the way, this also shows the dark side of Frazier. He was bitter and angry. So it really wasn't that one sided. One of the best documentaries I've seen and probably the most underrated.

2009 Sundance Film Festival In 1975, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier staged their third and final battle in the capital of the Philippines. Ali, in his infamous promoting of himself and ticket sales, dubbed it "The Thriller in Manilla." They had split their first two fights, and by this time Ali was considered the heavy favorite, with many (including Ali's camp) believing Frazier was washed up. It turned out to be an epic contest, one of the greatest heavyweight bouts of all time. Ali won when Frazier's camp threw in the towel after the 14th round, although witnesses reveal that Ali was perhaps even less able to answer the bell for the 15th round.

Ali went on to become a mythic figure, the public believing his self-proclaimed title "The greatest fighter of all time." Later, stricken by Parkinson's disease, he became universally beloved, virtually worshiped across the globe. In contrast, Joe Frazier has been almost forgotten, the victim of Ali's public insults and degradations, as well as two-out-of-three losses against Ali. The Thriller in Manilla examines the fight and the events leading up to it from Smokin' Joe's perspective. It's a tale that has never really been told, but was commissioned by the BBC and is likely to show on HBO this year.

It's a fascinating story. Frazier at his prime was every bit the match for Ali, as the record shows. Further, the fight in Manilla was so close that it could easily have gone either way. Yet Ali is an icon and Frazier lives in an apartment above his old gym in the roughest section of North Philadelphia.

Director John Dower admitted to the Sundance crowd he approached the film with an agenda—a project sympathetic to Joe and willing to take a few politically incorrect shots at Ali (who , as expected, refused the offer to be involved). Gen X and Y moviegoers unfamiliar with the participants may find the subject matter lacks relevance. But for those of us old enough to remember, this was more than a boxing rivalry, and Thriller in Manilla provides a fascinating perspective into one of the most politically charged athletic events in American history. As the movie accurately depicts, Ali vs. Frazier was ideological warfare—the cocky anti-war Muslim who claimed to speak for Black America against (Ali's words) the ignorant negro Uncle Tom who looked like a gorilla and did the white man's bidding. And unfortunately for Mr. Frazier, Ali made the labels stick. Frazier has never forgiven Ali for that. And he has never recovered from it.

I was excited to hear Joe Frazier's side of the story. However, this documentary is so one sided that it loses it's credibility in it's first 15 minutes.

Early on, Joe Frazier claims that Parkinson's Disease is Muhammad Ali's punishment for the way Ali behaved early in life. That's just disgraceful. The film seems to be trying to rewrite history, to cast Joe Frazier in a kinder light. But it backfires by exposing the bottomless well of bitterness and resentment that fuels the endless complaining done by Joe Frazier and his camp throughout the film.

And I think Ferdie Pacheco is the most entertaining thing in the movie. He calls out the filmmakers for their lack of knowledge of their subject numerous times, and at one point asks "Are you in boxing at all? I mean, are you coming from covering the stock market or something?" Right on, Ferdie.

The story of how Joe Frazier did everything he could to help a blacklisted Ali, lending him money, campaigning for his reinstatement to the boxing world when he had been shut out for refusing to serve in the US Army... and how Ali, it seems, never forgave him for it, and attempted to destroy Frazier as a fighter and as a man.

For those who, like me, grew up thinking of Ali as a flawless hero, a cross between Jesus and Elvis, this is quite a shocking story, but those comments above which complain that this film is biased towards Frazier are clearly not watching it attentively. There are no winners here - Ali's moral cowardice, his inability to ever apologise to Frazier for the racial taunting that effectively ruined the man's life, is more than matched by the cold, ugly bitterness that Frazier displays towards his nemesis. The story is as dark and comfortless as any Greek tragedy - these two men's lives were destroyed by their rivalry. One is rich, world-famous and locked into a crippled body; the other is poor, forgotten and healthy, but lives every day trapped in the past and in his unchanging enmity.

A stunning, mesmerising piece of work.

Several weeks ago, there was a special presentation of this documentary at an event to honor the memory of Smokin' Joe Frazier. Legendary boxing promoter Bob Arum spoke at the function, and although Arum prefaced his remarks by paying homage to the late Joe Frazier, he harshly criticized this documentary, bluntly calling it "disgusting" and an "unfair attack" on Muhammad Ali. However, Arum hit the nail on the head regarding this film, which, as another reviewer on the Web site accurately characterizes, is just "a piece of revisionist propaganda."

There are a slew of inaccuracies, myths, and half-truths presented in this documentary, so much so that if I were to address them all, this review would be the length of a book. However, I would like to dispel several of the most significant myths that this biased documentary perpetuates:

Documentary Myth: During Ali's exile, Joe Frazier nobly helped Ali out by giving him money and diligently lobbying to help Ali get his license reinstated.

Facts: Yes, during Ali's exile from boxing, Frazier would, on occasion, lend money to Ali and even went to great lengths to help Ali get his license back. But he didn't do so for magnanimous reasons, like it's portrayed in this documentary. Joe wanted a mega million dollar fight and knew that a bout with Ali would result in a huge fight payday, given Ali's high name recognition and stature. He facilitated Ali's return to boxing because he perceived Ali as his ticket to Ft. Knox, which is what Ali became. But Joe's "noble" gestures in helping Ali were for his own personal gain, not Ali's welfare.

Documentary Myth: By calling Joe "ugly" or " gorilla," Ali was making racial epithets.

Facts: True, Ali did call Frazier "ugly," but he also called Sonny Liston, Leon Spinks, and Larry Holmes "ugly" during pre-fight stages of his bouts with them as well. (He probably called Liston ugly more times than Frazier. Just view some old footage of everything leading up to the first Liston bout.) In addition to proclaiming to be "The Greatest," Ali would often boast to the press, in a jovial manner, that he was "pretty" and most fighters were "ugly."

It has to be understood that in addition to being a master boxer, Ali was also a master showman and fight promoter. The name calling wasn't meant to serve as personal attacks, and Ali's boasting of his boxing ability and his appearance wasn't conceit, contrary to popular myth. He just used narcissism to promote bouts, a marketing ploy he learned from watching pro wrestlers.

And yes, Ali did call Frazier "The Gorilla" before their third fight. But here again, it was a situation in which Frazier was not singled out because Ali had always created monikers for his opponents as a gimmick to promote fights. He called Frazier "The Gorilla" before their third fight, but he also coined Sonny Liston "The Big Ugly Bear," Floyd Patterson "The Rabbit," George Chuvalo "The Washerwoman," George Foreman "The Mummy," and Ernie Shavers "The Acorn" (a reference to Shaver's bald head).

Given this pattern, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Ali was creating monikers as a promotional gimmick, not as racial taunts. He applied it to many fighters, not just Frazier; it was just that Frazier was the only Ali opponent who spent his entire life whining about it.

Documentary Myth: The Nation of Islam, of which Ali was a member, and the Klu Klux Klan wanted to form a pact and Muhammad Ali spoke at a Klu Klux Klan Rally.

Facts: There's minimal evidence to support this documentary's claim that the KKK and the NOI wanted to collaborate. As for Ali speaking at a Klan rally, there's also no credible evidence to substantiate this assertion, and it most likely never happened. Being that Ali at the time was nothing more than arguably the world's most famous human being, surely news of Ali speaking at such an event would have inevitably leaked to the press. Add to that, the irony of an Afrocentric Muhammad Ali speaking at a rally of white supremacists would have made for such a sensational and controversial news story that virtually every news medium in the world would have reported it, and most likely it would have been a lead story. The long and short of it all is that the media would have had a field day with something like this. Yet there is no film or photographic record of this, nor is there any news report on record of this at all.

The documentary shows a film clip of Ali in an interview supposedly admitting to speaking at a KKK rally. However, the film footage has obviously been edited. Ali was most likely making these remarks as part of a gag. He was always one to clown and joke around, even while being interviewed.

I could go on and on about the myths, biased assertions, and falsehoods perpetuated in this documentary, such as implausible testimonies, a fabricated analysis of the Ali-Frazier fight trilogy, manipulated film footage, and Larry Holmes lying through his teeth by saying that Ali was "overrated" as a fighter even though, ironically, Holmes had always publicly proclaimed that Ali was his idol. But, unfortunately, IMDb imposes a 1,000-word limit for its reviews.

But the bottom line is that the "Thriller in Manila" documentary is, as Bob Arum states, "chock full of inaccuracies and is designed to demean Muhammad Ali" And as he also states, you can watch this documentary if you want, "but don't believe a word that's being said."