“I always considered him a misguided warrior. But I have no reason to
talk. He was just a gem and so special. He just had a problem, but who
am I to talk?” Mike Tyson shared those thoughts about his friend, the
late great Tupac Shakur, at the premiere of the new documentary, One
Night In Vegas.
The astounding film, written and directed by Reggie Bythewood,
examined the parallels and deep friendship of two of our most talented
and infamous icons in sports and music. While most forget about the
intelligence possessed by both because of their public behavior, One
Night In Vegas challenges those public misconceptions. Bythewood mixed
comic strip art, intense poetry by Joshua Bennett and B. Yung, and
interviews with people ranging from Dr. Maya Angelou to Mickey Rourke
to expertly weave the tale of two men on the road to success and their
hurdles along the way.
The documentary begins with the story of Tyson becoming the champ at
an early age and does the same for Tupac. In viewing the film, you
begin to realize they got into trouble simultaneously throughout the
years. Tyson reveals how he called Tupac from jail to get him to cease
his reckless actions. Bythewood delves deeper by adding a clip of
Tupac telling Arsenio Hall how that phone call impacted him. The depth
of the back story leads up to the discussion of the last time the two
were together. That was the night of Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon fight
at the MGM Grand. After Tyson beats Seldon in the first round, Tupac
gets into a scuffle. A few minutes later he was shot.
Reggie Bythewood does an excellent job of humanizing the man known as
Mike Tyson. It’s clear he still mourns the death of his friend as well
as his fall from grace. The best thing about the documentary is not
the storytelling, which is superb. However, it is the affirmation that
black friendship is an important part to our culture and we all don’t
wallow in the crabs-in-a-barrel mentality.
Check One Night In Vegas out when it airs on ESPN tonight, September 7th.
This film was ignorant, contrived, and succeeded in being another brazen attempt to glorify "thug" life. What it was, was a usurping of Tyson's success in the ring, trying to make a relationship of acquaintances into some lifelong buds thing, then spinning it as a sports story because one of them was an athlete. Seemed like Tyson really had no clue who Tupac really was, and the final "where was I" when Tupac died was complete nonsense and more or less an insult to Tupac who seems to have had more self awareness then this ignorant director who clearly seems to think he has such a genius and unique perspective that he would probably feel qualified to connect Marilyn Monroe's broken high heels to JFK's death. Total waste of time and this review makes it abundantly clear that the reviewer, either didn't see the film, or is just shilling it for some reason that was probably attempted to be explained in the movie. Can't say enough how ignorant this film was and an insult to Mike Tyson.