Review: Tyson (2009)

[Scott Mendelson]

Tyson
2009
87 minutes
Rated R

By Scott Mendelson

What do Henry Tillman, Alex Stewart, Michael Spinx, and I have in
common? None of us have lasted even a single round against Mike Tyson.
I still remember the code for Mike Tyson's Punch Out that allowed you
to skip straight to the title bout (007-373-5963), and I never, ever
defeated him. For about a two-year period, I was a boxing fan. When
Tyson was in his late-80s peak, I distinctly recall several of his
fights on HBO. My uncle ordered the much-hyped Tyson/Spinx fight on
pay per view in 1989; leaving to grab a snack in the opening round and
return moments later to discover the fight was over. To this day, I
can vividly remember the shock of watching the seemingly invincible
Iron Mike getting knocked out by the theoretically light weight Buster
Douglas in the tenth round. Like the correlation between Mark Twain
and Haley's Comet, my fascination with boxing came and went with Mike
Tyson.

Just over nineteen years after that stunning upset, Mike Tyson has sat
down with friend and director James Toback for a blunt and intimate
discussion of his childhood, his boxing career, and the downward
spiral that his life plunged into following his epic loss. Anyone with
a passing knowledge will know the main details. The rape conviction
and subsequent three-year prison term, the failed attempts at a
comeback, the infamous 1997 incident where bit off a chunk of Evander
Holyfield's ear in the middle of a match (an incident that more or
less ended his career)... they are all covered in seemingly forthright
detail by the man himself.

The majority of Tyson is simply Mike Tyson sitting in a chair, facing
the camera, and telling the story of his life up to this point. There
are plenty of fight clips, news snippets, and other assorted visual
aids, but at the end of the day, this is simply one of the most famous
boxers in the history of the sport waxing poetically about his
successes and failures.

While one can question the reliability of the narrator in several
instances, he certainly earns our benefit of the doubt with his
apparent honesty regarding all manner of bad behavior. Of his marriage
to actress Robin Givens (currently a member of the Tyler Perry casting
pool), he casually remarks the futility of one side accusing the other
of being a bi-polar, emotionally abusive psychotic, while the other
side accused their spouse of being a venomous gold-digger. He
resoundingly proclaims his innocence of the rape charge that sent him
to prison, and his memories of jail provide one of the highlights of
the picture. The most potent moments occur as footage of the infamous
ear-biting incident play onscreen, while Tyson recounts a kind of
stream of consciousness of what was allegedly going on in his head
during the fight.

What emerges from this narrative is a classic tale of a young man who
achieved unimaginable success at an age when he was in no position to
deal with the fallout. While the filmmaker is obviously a sympathetic
ear (Toback has cast Tyson in two of his previous films), there are
still doses of unflinching honesty to be found. What is contained here
is compelling and worth listening to, but Tyson seems to be only
scratching the surface. This first-person documentary is best viewed
as a sort of 'cliff notes' for the great autobiography that has yet to
be written.

Grade: B