Review: ‘Thrilla in Manila’ on HBO

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If you are not a boxing fan (I am not a boxing fan), the HBO documentary “Thrilla in Manila” -- the story of the Joe Frazier- Muhammad Ali rivalry, as it played across three fights from 1971 to 1975 -- is not the film to make you one. And if you are a boxing fan, well, even the boxing fans here seem appalled at the brutality of the famous final bout, called one of the greatest fights in history, even as they celebrate the participants’ gladiatorial resolve. But either way, the movie works.

History is written not only by but for the winners, and what Ali has not celebrated about himself the world has celebrated for him; he’s as famous as anyone has ever been, and as beloved. Frazier, 63 at the time of filming, was living in a room at his Philadelphia gym in a neighborhood known as the Badlands.

But Ali doesn’t come off all that well here. Part of it is context -- directed by John Dower, “Thrilla” is really a film about Frazier -- and part is just focus: Ali did behave badly toward Frazier, his customary brashness escalating to a calculated nastiness that qualified as personal abuse, and though he apologized publicly in later years, he never apologized directly to Frazier.

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(Photo courtesy HBO)