Directed by: Philip Marcus
Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth is the filmed version of Tyson's one-man Broadway show in which he narrates his own life story. Hitting the highlights and many of the lowlights of his life, Tyson pulls no punches and is unflinchingly honest and self-deprecating. The issue is that Tyson is not an eloquent speaker and hard to understand in many spots, which is crippling in any public speaking event, let alone a one-man Broadway show. He rattles off words so fast in some spots that I thought he was trying to imitate the "world's fastest speaker" from the 1980's FedEx commercials.
Dressed in an ill-fitting white suit, Tyson takes the audience through his troubled life with images and film projected on the backdrop behind him. These provide some much-needed visual cues during the many instances in which I was completely lost trying to understand Tyson. His face and brow are drenched in sweat (which he wipes often). I'm wondering if the heat from the spotlights plus the suit made him uncomfortably hot.
Tyson also makes the mistake often of trying to talk over audience applause and reactions. Instead of using this as a natural break from speaking, he continues plowing through his monologue. In other instances, the background music is playing so loud that it drowns Tyson out completely. Tyson devotes a lot of time to describing an out-of-ring altercation with Mitch Green, a journeyman fighter whom Tyson also defeated in the ring. There is plenty of profanity, racial slurs, and homophobic remarks used in this segment, which are really the only words I was able to comprehend. This lengthy story goes nowhere.
There are stories Tyson tells that have a "I guess you had to be there" feel to them, such as a story in which former wife Robin Givens was dating a then-unknown Brad Pitt. If there was a payoff to this story, I missed it. Others lack a payoff too. Tyson also proclaims his innocence over his 1992 rape conviction which put him in prison for 3 years, but instead of plumbing this period of his life for insight, he instead focuses on a visit by Florence Henderson that never came to fruition.
Tyson simply lacks the verbal grace to effectively communicate. Certainly Tyson's life is an interesting one and needed to be told, but I wish Morgan Freeman was nearby to narrate. Tyson's story is better told than someone other than himself. In a moment of candor, Tyson confesses that Spike Lee told him that when he speaks he needs an interpreter. How right he was.
No comments:
Post a Comment