Tyson Documentary Debuts To Positive Reviews At Cannes

Tyson Posing For Photographers In Cannes At Screening Of Documentary

The new Mike Tyson documentary directed by James Toback titled "Tyson" screened Friday at the Cannes Film Festival and is a “sympathetic portrait of a complex man driven by an anger that still bubbles beneath the surface,” according to Ray Bennett of the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Tyson’s “self-serving words tell everything. His candor appears sometimes unwitting but the result is a powerful film that will appeal to sports fans and those who respond to the visceral clamor of the fight world” (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 5/17). In London, Simon Crerar writes the documentary is a “brutally frank, no-holds barred” film that received "standing ovations from critics and audiences” Friday. The movie mixes “archive footage with a series of revealing interviews with Tyson, and only Tyson.” Toback said that he “believed he had succeeded in presenting Tyson as a ‘complex and iconic and noble human being'” (LONDON TIMES, 5/17). Toback, who financed the documentary himself, said that Tyson was “taken aback by the intense crowd reaction” to the film. Toback said of Tyson: “He turned to me and said, ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this,’ the spectacle was so overwhelming” (LATIMES.com, 5/17). However, in Phoenix, Norm Frauenheim writes it “sounds as if this documentary … is just another look at a former heavyweight champ who could never overcome an identity forever fractured by insecurities” (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 5/19).

COMING ATTRACTIONS: Serbian director Emir Kusturica’s documentary on Argentina soccer legend Diego Maradona will screen at Cannes this week (REUTERS, 5/17).