Lawrence Gilliard Jr. | Through the Shattered Lens

Big George Foreman is a biopic about …. well, it’s right there in the title, isn’t it?

The film follows George Foreman (Khris Davis), from his poverty-stricken childhood in Houston’s infamous Fifth Ward to his current life as a beloved member of the American pop cultural pantheon. The film portrays Foreman as someone who learned how to fight early, punching out the children at his school who taunted him by calling him “George Poorman.” As a teenager, he drops out of high school and attempts to make a living as a mugger. Spending the night in a sewer and hiding from the police inspires George to try to change his life by joining the Job Corps. It’s while in Job Corps that he meets Doc Broadus (Forest Whitaker), a former professional boxer who takes George under his wing and teaches him how to work out his anger in the ring. Foreman marries, gets rich, cheats on his first wife, becomes the world champion, and is then humiliated when he loses his title to Muhammad Ali (played, in a not particularly convincing performance, by Sullivan Jones). Mired in depression and self-loathing, Foreman has a combination of a heart attack and a religious experience. He leaves behind boxing to become a preacher but, years later, an alcoholic accountant loses all of Foreman’s money and Big George is tempted to return to the ring at an age when most boxers have long since retired.

Some people know him as a fearsome boxer while others know him as the friendly face who sells grills but, regardless of what he may represent to the viewer, George Foreman’s real-life story is a compelling one and it’s pretty much impossible not to like him, even when he’s being played by an actor who is clearly not George Forman. (Personally, I’ll always remember George Foreman for his cameo on King of the Hill. “Novelty grill!? The fight’s on!”) Foreman is credited as being an executive producer on Big George Foreman and the film is evenly divided between the life of the young, decadent George who threw money around and cheated on his wife and the older, religious George who is committed to his family, his church, and his community center.

From a cinematic point of view, Younger, self-centered George is more fun to watch than Older, likable George. That’s because Younger George throws big parties, lives in a big mansion, and owns a fleet of luxury cars. Everyone around Younger George wears the height of 70s fashion and the soundtrack is full of 70s music. Younger George does stuff like put an exhibition match where he tries to knock out five fighters in one night night. Older George may be the better person and it’s good to see that he got his life together but it’s hard not to miss the decadence of the film’s first half once it skips forward in time and focuses on George Foreman as a surprisingly conventional suburban Dad.

Again, Foreman’s real-life story is a compelling one and George Foreman is an inspiring human being but the film itself is a rather conventional biopic, one that hits all of the expected moments without digging too much underneath the surface. Watching the film, one can respect the biopic’s obvious love for its subject and appreciate Khris Davis’s lead performance while also feeling that an interview with the real George Foreman would have been more compelling.

Despite the fact that it was nominated for best picture and marked the start of his fantastically successful collaboration with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film Gangs of New York does not have the best reputation. It always seems to be regarded as one of Scorsese’s lesser films and, often times, both The Aviator and The Departed are described as representing a comeback of sorts from Gangs.

To a certain extent, I have to agree. Gangs of New York is a lesser Scorsese movie but then again, a lesser Scorsese film is still a hundred times better than the greatest films from Brett Ratner or Michael Bay.

The flaws of Gangs of New York are many. The film, which tells the epic story of how an Irish gang led by Leonard DiCaprio battled a nativist gang led by Daniel Day-Lewis in Civil War-era New York City, runs for nearly 3 hours and yet it somehow still feels rushed and incomplete. Cameron Diaz is far too contemporary of an actress to be truly believable as a 19th century pickpocket. For that matter, Leonardo DiCaprio gives one of the worst performances of his career, coming across as being one-note and shrill. If you only knew DiCaprio from his work in Gangs of New York, you would have a hard time believing that he was capable of doing the type of work that he did in Inception or The Wolf of Wall Street.

And yet, Gangs of New York is one of those flawed films that I can’t help but enjoy.

First off, on a purely personal level, how can I not love a film about how terribly the Irish were treated in the 19th Century? Seriously, the Irish were regarded as if they were somehow subhuman. They were attacked for being Catholic. They were viewed as being criminals. An entire freaking political party — the American party — was formed specifically to keep the Irish out. But you know what? We Irish kept coming, we kept fighting for our rights, and now everyone wishes they could be one of us!

Secondly, and this should not a shock when you consider that the film was directed by Martin Scorsese, the film looks absolutely gorgeous! Despite the fact that it’s takes place in a 19th century slum and most of the characters are poor, Gangs of New York is a visual feast. I loved the ornate sets and all the colorful clothes. I loved the attention to detail that was put into everything.

(My favorite visual from the film: Daniel Day-Lewis and his entourage walking down a street while fireworks explode directly over Day-Lewis’s shoulder.)

Third, there’s Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. One reason why DiCaprio’s performance is so noticeably bad is because he’s acting opposite Day-Lewis. Sporting a handle-bar mustache and speaking in an almost satirically exaggerated New York accent, Day-Lewis turns Bill into one cinema’s greatest villains.

Add to that, the great Italian actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice show up for a few minutes, playing Simon Legree in a theatrical production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin! Scorsese should make more films with Radice.

But, perhaps the main reason why I enjoy Gangs of New York is because, as I’ve mentioned so many times in the past, I really am a big history nerd. And Gangs of New York deals with a period in American history that really doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. While we all know that the Civil War started when the South seceded from the union, what is often forgotten is that the North was not united in their support of Abraham Lincoln and the Union. In fact, the Mayor of New York, Fernando Wood, was such a strong supporter of the Confederacy that he, at one point, suggested that New York City should secede from the union as well. And when Lincoln instituted the draft, NYC — and several other cities in the north — exploded into riots.

Of course, Gangs of New York is not a 100% historically accurate. For one thing, it compresses the time frame of the draft riots and — as films often do — it downplays the culture of Northern racism and instead portrays racists like Bill Cutting as being the exception to the rule. But, even with that in mind, Gangs of New York still serves as a good starting point for those who want to learn more about American history than what they’ve been told in school.

My favorite parts of Gangs of New York dealt not with how the gangs fought each other but instead how the gangs were used as political foot soldiers. One of the major supporting characters in Gangs of New York is William “Boss” Tweed (Jim Broadbent), a real-life politician who was at the center of one of America’s first major political scandals. When we first meet Tweed, he is using Bill Cutting’s gang to fix elections. However, as the film progresses, Tweed comes to realize that the political future of New York rests with the Irish. So, Tweed starts using the Irish gang to fix elections. For those of us who are into political history, the Boss Tweed scenes are a lot of fun.

Gangs of New York has its flaws. It’s the type of project that, if it were made today, it would probably be a series on HBO and it would win all sorts of awards. (Actually, it did kinda. It was called Boardwalk Empire.) It’s not perfect, but I like it.