Brutally honest, Tyson offers one perspective on the life of the boxer – his own. This intimate look is enough to carry the film through its fascinating portrait of the fallen hero.
Comment
08/04/09
Tyson (2009)
85
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:126
Fresh:107
Rotten:19
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: A fascinating, emotional, and frank confessional from Iron Mike that sheds a sympathetic light on one of boxing's most controversial icons.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Aug 6, 2009 Wide
US Box Office: $825,450
Synopsis: Love him or hate him, Mike Tyson is inarguably one of popular culture’s most fascinating figures. In this riveting documentary portrait of the controversial boxer, filmmaker and friend James Toback... [More]
Director: James Toback
Reviews for Tyson
Top CriticTyson is presented via multiple split screen, with relentlessly frank and rhythmic sentences overlapping one another. The effect is mesmerising.
08/05/09
Top CriticJust relentless lisping monotonous speech that makes the prospect of entering the ring with Mike seem attractive if only because it will be over sooner.
08/09/09
Top CriticThere is something compelling about the way he presents his version of the stories and scandals that surround him.
08/07/09
Top CriticThis doco goes a little way to portraying Tyson as more human than animal. Iron Mike even sheds a few tears.
08/02/09
Top CriticIn these interviews, there's a strange poetry to the way he talks about his life. I actually found it really moving.
08/05/09
Top CriticHe’s amazingly frank about some of the people he doesn’t like, and he breaks down when he talks about his friends and the people he loved. A surprisingly fine documentary.
08/05/09
Top CriticEmotionally and psychologically raw, this is a revelatory experience. Tyson has a Second Act, he could mentor a troubled teen like his savior Cus D'Amato.
05/04/09
Despite some compelling moments, this one-sided portrait of former boxing superstar Mike Tyson feels like a missed opportunity.
04/16/09
It appears that Toback is out to protect and defend his friend as much as anything else, and so -- while Tyson is indeed fascinating -- it's also a missed opportunity.
04/24/09
Like Raging Bull, like On the Waterfront, even like Woyzeck (the granddaddy of lumpenprole tragic drama), Toback’s portrait asks us to ransack the human animal to see if there is a soul inside – and if so, of precisely what kind?
03/27/09
Tyson may be the case of a subject not quite ready for primetime, a man still smarting from his past wounds, too narcissistic, frankly, to be very interesting.
04/21/09
Documentary as ghost-written autobiography.
06/12/09
It may be discomfiting at times, but it's always honest, and like all of Toback's strongest work, it's challenging from beginning to end.
05/14/09
More a testimony for the defense than a documentary, it's a sympathetic portrait of a complex man driven by an anger that still bubbles beneath the surface.
05/08/09
Ultimately, this may be the closest we'll ever get to understanding how Mike feels about himself, and there's value in viewing that assessment.
04/22/09
Hypnotic and ultimately incomplete.
05/08/09
Tyson won’t shatter all your preconceptions, but if you don’t at least question them, you haven’t been paying attention.
03/27/09
Forget the ear biting, forget the porn career, forget the wife abuse, at least he seems to have come to terms with these issues and might be closer to being at peace with himself.
04/07/09
It's certainly an effectively tough, unsentimental look at boxing.
03/27/09
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