The Greatest Review: A Fascinating Insight Into an Icon
In The Greatest, Prime Video’s new biographical drama, we see the evolution of Cassius Clay (Jaalen Best) into Muhammad Ali. Starting at the 1960 Rome Olympics and building to his first heavyweight title fight against Sonny Liston (Amin Joseph) in 1964, the series also spends time on the people around him, including his mother, father and brother. It gives us a fuller picture of the man often regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. All eight episodes arrive on 4 November.
It’s always a difficult task for a biopic to get its storytelling right. With only a limited number of episodes, a delicate balance is required to understand which parts of the person in question’s life story need to be told. A lot of viewers may know the hits already, but not everyone will know how they got there. For The Greatest, it starts with a younger Clay at the Rome Olympics in 1960 before recreating lots of important moments in his career all the way through to his first heavyweight title fight with Sonny Liston in 1964. To that extent, it’s focused on the formative years of the icon, but The Greatest isn’t attempting to just tell the story of Clay; it’s also intent on showing a lot of fascinating elements that play out in parallel with his journey. We’re fortunate enough to be shown his story and what defines him, but it also follows Liston’s route to the top, which couldn’t have been more different, and that contrast gives the series a lot of its drive.
The show doesn’t shy away from the racial tensions of the time either. I can’t pretend these were areas I knew much about before watching, and I was impressed by the care taken with these tense, delicate moments. Ben Watkins, who created the series with Ali’s widow, Lonnie, as an executive producer, clearly saw this as essential to the wider story, and it makes for much stronger storytelling.
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By focusing on the evolution of Clay over the years from amateur to pro, the show gives Jaalen Best a lot of scope in terms of his performance, and he takes that opportunity with open arms. He’s absolutely brilliant in the lead role as he gets more confident throughout the season as he begins to get more successful. Although it is Amin Joseph as Sonny Liston who stole the show for me, as I was particularly moved by his character’s story as well as his performance. He feels so genuine in his performance, and I found the scene where he’s pitching to the board to give him a chance deeply moving. If anything, by the end I found that Liston’s story was more interesting than Clay’s, and it felt that I was rooting for his character far more by the time the final credits rolled around. From what I’ve read online, Liston had very little support from the boxing establishment and press during his lifetime, and I liked the way The Greatest shows his complicated journey to the top in parallel to that of Clay.
We’ve seen a lot of boxing media in recent years, from the unbelievable Creed movies led by Michael B Jordan (who also produces this show) to Real Steel, the robot classic with Hugh Jackman. It’s meant that creatives have often had to get creative with their visualisation of the fights at the heart of the story. I remember being really impressed by the more recent Creed movies in how they chose to portray the big fights. It’s a sentiment I echo here with The Greatest too. Throughout, there are lots of really clever shots that show the audience what’s going on in his head during the fight. It means that even if you aren’t a fan of the sport, you can still maintain the investment in the story, which is important for a biopic like this.
The Greatest may not be the complete story of Muhammad Ali, but it is the complete story of Cassius Clay. For boxing fans, it’s an intimate look at an icon. For everyone else, it’s a compelling story of two men from very different worlds heading towards the same ring, told by a show that gives its rival as much care as its hero.
★★★★
On Prime Video on November 4th / Jaalen Best, Amin Joseph, Omari Hardwick, Dana Gourrier, Kai Parham / Amazon MGM Studios / Created by Ben Watkins
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