Written & Directed By: James Toback
Grade: C

Release Date: April 24, 2009

Tyson is a documentary about boxing champion, Mike Tyson’s life. It is told by Tyson himself as he takes us from his days on the streets as a thief to him rising to fame to his fateful fall that turned him in to more of a family man. Hearing him talk about his past is interesting and tragic in many ways. He talks about being detained in juvenile hall several times when he was very young and seeing so many of his friends there, essentially his home at that time. Tyson shares his very troubled youth with us. He is wiser now, but he doesn’t share this in a regretful way, but often in a comedic way. The struggle, everything he accomplished, and where it all led him is an interesting aspect to this documentary, but the most amusing side is just the slightly slanted way of thinking that he lives by. Tyson is blunt even when it makes him look unappealing. The way he comes out and says certain things is both entertaining and honest whether you like the guy or not.

The film uses a combination of current interviews with Tyson, archived footage of Tyson, and older interviews with him and his trainer, Cus D’Amato. There are moments where we feel a bit of sympathy for Tyson such as when his trainer died who he immensely looked up to, his ghonerreah outbreak before his first big title fight, and having his pride taken away from him. Tyson even turns a shameful and animalistic action of biting the opponent’s ear in the ring to something we can understand. He says he knew he wasn’t going to be able to win that championship belt. Tyson says this hurt him so badly, he just wanted to hurt him back. This gives us a better insight beyond the more common notion this triggers the image of a crazed man. Another insight we get about Tyson is his fear and distrust of people. This seemed to heighten when D’Amato died as he was the only one who was able to get past the wall he puts up.

Although the film shows Tyson’s point of view, it is really the only point of view that we get. Tyson is at times an engaging and enjoyable documentary, but it is a very unbalanced one, simply made to make us feel sympathetic towards Tyson through hearing his struggles. The only other person who is interviewed aside from Tyson, is D’Amato and even then it happens to be a joint interview with Tyson by his side. While some major moments of Tyson’s life are discussed many are mentioned and brushed under the rug such as his domestic affairs with his first wife and his rape conviction. Tyson claims he didn’t do it and that is pretty much it on the subject. We don’t get any other point of views on many controversial moments in his life, not even to those who were perhaps close to it. Director, James Toback, has responded to this by claiming that other people such as some of Tyson’s ex-wives weren’t interviewed since he expected them to lie. This seems to be a faulty excuse and as if Toback just wanted to show the more positive outlook on Tyson’s life, not giving any chance to disturb this upbeat view. To support this even further, James Toback, has been a long time friend of Mike Tyson and really just created a puff piece for him to describe his life as he would like it to be viewed.

Tyson is biased, but it could have been much more so. Tyson could have just talked about his glory days. He talks about it all though, even if some of the most pressing issues are dropped as soon as they are brought up. Still, everything is at least touched upon. There are moments such as when he talks about how he has messed up particularly with women in the past. He acknowledges mistakes he has made in his troubled youth growing up in Brooklyn as well as during certain fights when he got too big of a head and set himself up for his own downfall. Tyson is Mike Tyson’s monologue, his chance to tell us the events on his life as he saw them, giving us an interesting and slightly entertaining film just because of the bizarre insights of Tyson. It is very one-sided and not really a good documentary, even bland at times. Anyone who is interested in the man that is Mike Tyson will probably enjoy the film, as long as you can take the good with the bad.

Directed By: Olivia Klaus
Grade: A

Sin By Silence is a documentary about a group of women who have been brutally abused for many years and murdered their husbands as they saw this as the only way out. Even with their abusers out of their lives, they are still very much trapped as most of them are spending the rest of their lives behind bars. Many have already served 20 or more years and have never even been able to see their grandkids because of this. Many of these women have had suicidal desires and were at an all time low. They were barely making it through. One of these women began to realize that she might have not been the only one in this institution that have gone through what she has, and are still going through it. These women formed together to make the first inmate-initiated and led group in the United States. Through this the women learned that they weren’t alone and that many other women around them had gone through the same thing. It seemed like their lives were over, but in talking about it, not only were they given some closure and understanding, but they were also given a purpose. They might not be able to change what happened to them but they used their experiences to prevent what happened to them from happening to others who might be headed towards the same destructive path.

When talking about domestic violence the first question is usually why doesn’t the women just leave. Sin By Silence goes through personal accounts where leaving wasn’t much of a possibility whether it being for the sake of the family, financial reasons, or because they were convinced that they were the crazy one and perhaps things didn’t happen the way they remember. Some of the husbands would purposely get their wives fired from their jobs when they tried to leave. One even had a warrant out for his arrest, but never had to pay his time for fracturing his wife’s skull and breaking her ribs. Most of the women never thought that they would be in abusive relationships. One woman’s husband and abuser was the pastor of her church, who no one would have ever believed was a violent man.

Many of the women in the documentary had their court case in the late 1980’s when laws were very different, especially domestic violence laws. There really wasn’t anything to protect these women. When they were being judged for what they did, the abuse they encountered really wasn’t a factor. They were given 1st and 2nd degree murder sentencing rather than self-defense, which is more reflective on the truth. These women begin to write letters and get coverage on what happened to them. From the support program they have created and the work they do, many of the convicts were given a second and more fair hearing. For many this might not make a difference as physical abuse is the only type of abuse that can easily be proven. As many of these women have been in jail already for several decades, the physical evidence isn’t nearly as strong as it would have been in their original trial. Still they continue fighting for their freedom and what is more important to them is to create discussion, to defeat the misconceptions of all the girls that think this could never happen to them, and to make a difference from their cells.

Sin By Silence shows that convicts even of violent crimes aren’t always the monsters that they are painted to be. In this case they are really the victims. It’s inspiring to be able to see these women who have been torn apart and broken down for most of their lives to be able to turn their pain around to do something positive. They are not done living and are trying to do good for others as they feel if they would have known everything they do now, they would never had let things get as bad as they did. Sin By Silence brings us in to these women’s most painful memories, but it also gives us the chance to really know them. These are just like people that we know, people who are close to us in our lives. They are 1 in 3 women, they are just the example of what happens after years of abuse. Sin By Silence sparks important conversations and squashes that voice in your head that tells you nothing like this could ever happen to you. It shows that there is always something you can do for yourself and for others. Life in prison still leaves you with a life, still offering the opportunity to initiate change. There are always others around who have gone through what you have; you are never alone. What Sin By Silence really does to make it stand out is it transfers so much emotion to the viewer. It is impossible not to feel for these women. Sin By Silence is a very powerful film full of emotions, heartbreak, and the strength of convicted victims who fight for themselves and every other person who could be subjected to the same entrapment.