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Mike Tyson Recalls Prison, Gonorrhea, Ear-Biting:
Review by Rick Warner
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sitting on a plush sofa in a Malibu beach home, Mike Tyson tears up while remembering his late mentor Cus D’Amato.
He recalls growing up as a pudgy kid in a Brooklyn slum, where he committed armed robberies and got hot chocolate thrown in his face. He recounts his divorces, his rape conviction, his shocking loss to Buster Douglas, his chomping on Evander Holyfield’s ear and other misadventures in an improbable life.
Once known as “The Baddest Man on the Planet,” the former heavyweight boxing champion is revealed as a regret-filled, tortured soul in “Tyson,” a documentary that packs the awesome power of one of its subject’s vaunted uppercuts.
Director James Toback, who has known Tyson for 24 years and given him cameos in two of his films, has parlayed that friendship into the most brutally candid confessional ever delivered by a famous athlete.
In 2007, Toback interviewed Iron Mike for 30 hours over three days near Los Angeles while he was being treated at a nearby rehab clinic. Those sessions form the bulk of “Tyson,” which also features highlights of his savage knockouts, old interviews and home-movie footage.
Youngest Champ
Toback uses a few arty techniques, such as overlapping dialogue and multiple split screens. But most of the film consists of Tyson sitting on a chair or sofa, staring straight into the camera and talking about his rise from poverty to world champion and his decline from international icon to disgraced, washed-up fighter.
We learn that he had gonorrhea when he beat Trevor Berbick in 1986 to become the youngest heavyweight titleholder (Tyson says he was “burning like a Good Humor in July”), that he suffered blackouts during his two bouts with Holyfield and that he’s an extreme personality who’s either at “the top of the world” or the “bottom of the ocean.”
Tyson spares no one, including himself.
Promoter Don King, whom Tyson sued for allegedly stealing much of his fortune, is a “slimy reptilian” who would “kill his mother for a dollar.” Desiree Washington, the beauty queen who accused Tyson of rape, is a “wretched swine of a woman.” His original managers, Bill Cayton and Jim Jacobs, were like “slavemasters.”
Drugs, Womanizing
In the end, though, Tyson admits he has no one to blame but himself. He traces his problems to his fatherless childhood, D’Amato’s death a year before he won the championship, immaturity, drug abuse and womanizing. Listening to him talk about his life is like rubbernecking at a traffic accident: While it feels intrusive, you can’t stop yourself.
Since Tyson is the only person Toback interviewed, the perspective is all his. We don’t hear from Washington, Holyfield or anyone else whose encounters with Tyson were less than pleasurable. You don’t have to believe every detail, though, to appreciate the power of his story.
Tyson is 42 now, a potbellied unemployed father of six. He says he just wants to be a “decent human being” and see his kids grow up.
“What I’ve done in the past is a history and what I’m going to do in the future is a mystery,” he proclaims, in a statement as perplexing as the man.
“Tyson,” from Sony Pictures Classics, is playing in New York and Los Angeles. Rating: ***1/2
Review by Rick Warner
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sitting on a plush sofa in a Malibu beach home, Mike Tyson tears up while remembering his late mentor Cus D’Amato.
He recalls growing up as a pudgy kid in a Brooklyn slum, where he committed armed robberies and got hot chocolate thrown in his face. He recounts his divorces, his rape conviction, his shocking loss to Buster Douglas, his chomping on Evander Holyfield’s ear and other misadventures in an improbable life.
Once known as “The Baddest Man on the Planet,” the former heavyweight boxing champion is revealed as a regret-filled, tortured soul in “Tyson,” a documentary that packs the awesome power of one of its subject’s vaunted uppercuts.
Director James Toback, who has known Tyson for 24 years and given him cameos in two of his films, has parlayed that friendship into the most brutally candid confessional ever delivered by a famous athlete.
In 2007, Toback interviewed Iron Mike for 30 hours over three days near Los Angeles while he was being treated at a nearby rehab clinic. Those sessions form the bulk of “Tyson,” which also features highlights of his savage knockouts, old interviews and home-movie footage.
Youngest Champ
Toback uses a few arty techniques, such as overlapping dialogue and multiple split screens. But most of the film consists of Tyson sitting on a chair or sofa, staring straight into the camera and talking about his rise from poverty to world champion and his decline from international icon to disgraced, washed-up fighter.
We learn that he had gonorrhea when he beat Trevor Berbick in 1986 to become the youngest heavyweight titleholder (Tyson says he was “burning like a Good Humor in July”), that he suffered blackouts during his two bouts with Holyfield and that he’s an extreme personality who’s either at “the top of the world” or the “bottom of the ocean.”
Tyson spares no one, including himself.
Promoter Don King, whom Tyson sued for allegedly stealing much of his fortune, is a “slimy reptilian” who would “kill his mother for a dollar.” Desiree Washington, the beauty queen who accused Tyson of rape, is a “wretched swine of a woman.” His original managers, Bill Cayton and Jim Jacobs, were like “slavemasters.”
Drugs, Womanizing
In the end, though, Tyson admits he has no one to blame but himself. He traces his problems to his fatherless childhood, D’Amato’s death a year before he won the championship, immaturity, drug abuse and womanizing. Listening to him talk about his life is like rubbernecking at a traffic accident: While it feels intrusive, you can’t stop yourself.
Since Tyson is the only person Toback interviewed, the perspective is all his. We don’t hear from Washington, Holyfield or anyone else whose encounters with Tyson were less than pleasurable. You don’t have to believe every detail, though, to appreciate the power of his story.
Tyson is 42 now, a potbellied unemployed father of six. He says he just wants to be a “decent human being” and see his kids grow up.
“What I’ve done in the past is a history and what I’m going to do in the future is a mystery,” he proclaims, in a statement as perplexing as the man.
“Tyson,” from Sony Pictures Classics, is playing in New York and Los Angeles. Rating: ***1/2
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