Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2001

The Contenders:

Will Smith: Ali
Russell Crowe: A Beautiful Mind
Sean Penn: I am Sam
Tom Wilkinson: In the Bedroom
Denzel Washington: Training Day (winner)

The Greatest

Film: Ali
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

Every now and then, an actor known for fluff pieces, comedies, or summer blockbuster actiony pablum pulls off a role that demonstrates that he or she is deserving of a lot more respect. Such I the case with Will Smith and Ali. You could argue that Smith attempted to do this with the previous year’s The Legend of Bagger Vance. But it was Ali where Smith showed his chops. Of course, he immediately went back to summer blockbusters and sequels, but every now and then, Smith pulls out a performance that shows he’s better than a lot of his films. For what it’s worth, the same thing could be said about Jamie Foxx in this film, too.

Ali, like most biopics worth the time and effort, doesn’t cover the entire life of its subject, but focuses instead on the most interesting part of the subject’s life. In the case of Muhammad Ali (Will Smith) this means skipping his amateur career and jumping directly into his two fights with Sonny Liston (Michael Bennt), his conversion to Islam, his relationship with Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles) and his troubles with the draft, legal battles, and eventual release from his military obligations and reinstatement of his boxing license. The film covers Ali’s first fight with Joe Frazier (James Toney) and concludes with Ali’s recapturing of the world heavyweight title in his fight against George Foreman (Charles Shufford) in the now-legendary Rumble in the Jungle. The film wisely avoids dealing with Ali’s decline, later years, and suffering from Parkinson’s disease. No, we get Ali in his prime, the Ali that was a force of nature as much as he was a force in boxing.