When We Were Kings opened my eyes to why Muhammad Ali holds such a special place in the sports pantheon, and far beyond. While I’m too young to have first-hand knowledge of Ali’s flair and Homeric virtues, this documentary lets Ali entertain you. The fresh wit, the fierce fighting, the consciousness of his opportunities and the uniqueness of his role in American society… all comes through in this film. When We Were Kings was filmed mostly in 1974, but wasn’t finished and distributed until 1997, when it won an Oscar for Best Documentary.
The fight itself — the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” — is a frame for the film. But the story told doesn’t depend on the boxing. It’s about Ali, and the other figures who revolve around him (like it or not): Don King, George Foreman, and others. Even James Brown and other musical legends were part of the Zaire event. I had no idea the African stage became such a wide-ranging festival… all because Mobutu Seko, the Zairean dictator, offered Ali and Foreman $5M each to hold the fight in the middle of Africa. The more contemporary interviews with Norman Mailer and George Plimpton, both of whom covered the fight as journalists, were sparing, but provided useful background for the now-period footage.
The best parts, again, are simply watching Ali in his prime, both as a man and a boxer (at least, he won). These images help offset the Atlanta Olympics torch-lighting, and subsequent public appearances over the last decade, where the physical consequences of years in the ring are all too apparent.
Metacritic score of 83 denotes “universal acclaim.” Sounds right.