Simply A Masterpiece

Please don't spend money on this.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I enjoyed this way more than I expected to, its like watching a Rocky movie minus the training montages, No, by the end its like watching the ups and downs of all 5 Rocky movies. The rise and fall including beloved trainers, millions lost and gained, titles won and lost, crooked managers (King), rivalries, (Holyfield) getting caught up in the money machine and getting used by the leeches. Fascinating in a way I didn't expect.Its put together really well too Mike Tyson narrates his life story along with a mixture of original interviews, archival footage and photographs. It's absolutely intriguing, you never know what Tyson is going to say next and he has such an original way of speaking, hilarious quote-worthy stuff, absolutely honest and showing a surprising intelligence.•I'd forgotten just how amazing he was at 20, so fast, what a machine. No one could touch him.•The Holyfield fiasco- I have a new outlook on that now and actually feel he was justified in biting the ear, after the head-butts he sustained in 2 fights.•His coach Mickey... no wait Cus, the only person he ever trusted, changed his life and broken by his death.•I personally feel that he's been used and abused his whole life, not saying he's any angel but I don't know how he could trust anyone.•How his 3 years in jail ruined him. Anxiety and a switch in religions.•His last fight, just a payday, really he's taking the pi$$ out of the boxing federation who he no longer respects. Ha •Boxing has never been the same since the Tyson era, I couldn't tell you the heavyweight champion is now.

I stepped into Tyson with a pretty distinct idea of who the subject was, where he came from, and what I thought of his legacy. Ultimately, I was hoping this kind of long-session chat in a comfortable place with the former champion would reveal some special insight into his complex identity and deliberately checked my preconceptions at the door to better facilitate an open mind. Turns out I really shouldn't have bothered. Despite his best intentions to prove otherwise, Mike Tyson comes across as a simple man who desperately wants to be deep but is either unwilling or unable to hide the truth. At the core of his being he's pure reflex, which is a trait that served him well during his days in the ring but left him ripe for coercion outside its boundaries. Phenomenal athletes rarely double as tangible role models, and Tyson himself offers dramatic proof of that fact. Little more than an ego stroke, the documentary focuses almost exclusively on the ex-champ's point of view and skims over or accepts thin excuses for each of the more intriguing moments of his life. The most surprising thing about it came from Mike's old training footage, and the realization of just how blindingly fast he really was at his peak.

It is hard to believe that Mike Tyson was bullied as a young boy. We had known about him since he came into the spotlight as one of the best boxers of his generation. In this amazing documentary by James Toback, we get to know more of the man himself, rather than the persona in the media.Early on, Mike Tyson experienced fear as older guys taunted him in his own neighborhood. His passion at that early stage of his life was to raise pigeons. One day, a boy got hold of one of them and killed the bird senselessly. That incident served as a sort of transformation for Mike Tyson to avenge the slaying of the creature he loved.As he grew up, he joined the gang, beginning a career of robbery and getting into trouble. He came from a broken home. Son of a prostitute that decamped the home as Mike was a young boy, he grew up with a lot of anger. It was not until Tyson found boxing that made his attitude change. Finding a role model and a champion in Cus D'Amato, marked a turn for the boxer as he life took a different direction.We are shown moments of triumphs in his amazing career beating opponent after opponent until his incredible defeat. The glamorous life now was accessible to him. Robin Givens and the boxer had a short, but tempestuous marriage that only lasted for a short time. Right after that Tyson was involved in an infamous incident involving Desiree Washington, which caused him to be jailed for a while.The jail experience probably what decelerated his magnificent career. He went from being on top of the world to being the laughing stock and the butt of all kinds of jokes. Fortunately, Mike Tyson finally understood that if he wanted to succeed even more, he had to toe the line. It is amazing he has been able to keep some of the money he made, something that most of his peers have not done.James Toback assembled the material as an intimate conversation of Mike Tyson with the viewer. We feel as though we finally got to know what made the man what he is. Mr. Toback is a wonderful man who we met once casually, but we were impressed by his no nonsense attitude and his approachability. "Tyson" is made better by Mr. Toback's intelligent account on a larger than life personality.

This documentary blew me away, before this I only knew of Mike Tyson the once great boxer who people spoke ill of and referred to as animal, anyone who thinks Mike Tyson is nothing more than an animal needs to see this film, you will only come to find that Tyson was an animal in the ring which is greatly shown in the movie as it details his power, speed, strength and the intense training it took for him to become one of the worlds greatest ever fighters, but it also shows what happened when he stepped out of the ring, his story needs to be heard and the way it has been portrayed in this film is amazing from a modern view not your typical HBO Documentary, if you want to see some brutal but effective fighting narrated by the man himself and also see Tyson like you have never seen him before, watch this movie.