(Bruised/Hopscotch)

Seen through the eyes of a tortured tiger 

By the time I learnt of the name Mike Tyson, he was already the focus of late-night talk show parody and satire. I was more familiar with his monumental Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! video game on the Nintendo Entertainment System than I was with the monumental young boxer who wowed audiences with his ferocious attacks and lightning speed. It was similar to hearing about The Clash when I had not yet developed the cognitive powers to appreciate them: I knew why he was supposedly important, I just couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Watching this unabashedly one-sided documentary from James Toback (in a rare departure from fiction) goes some way to explaining the fuss, while also putting a spotlight on the heavyweight’s spectacular fall(s) from grace. Drawing heavily from one-on-one interviews with the champ, the documentary travels from the mean streets of Brooklyn to training at the hands of visionary trainer Cus D’Amato and the many battles (both within the ring and his mind) that Tyson fought in the decades following. The angry young man suffering from self-confidence issues angle has been done to death in most sports documentaries of redemption and woe, but the willingness of Tyson to bare all doesn’t fail to move you. It’s unlikely to sway your opinion of the fallen warrior, but in a paparazzi culture where it’s all too easy to consider celebrities as objects rather than people, Tyson is a humanising look at the invisible factors that can topple the seemingly undefeatable.  

***½

MITCH ALEXANDER

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