Tyson (2008, Dir: James Toback)

I remember my Dad waking me up in the middle of the night once so that we could listen to Mike Tyson beat – no, destroy – Frank Bruno on the radio. This was in 1989, and a lot has happened since. Tyson’s life fell apart and due to Sky TV there’s no need to listen to a boxing match on the radio anymore. Shame really.

Call me a sexist pig but I’m never quite sure what to believe when I hear about a famous person being accused of rape. It happens all the time in the UK with footballers and rugby players, and it just seems a bit too convenient that girls somehow willingly go into a hotel room with 4 or 5 drunken men and then cry rape afterwards. With Tyson though, I always thought that his rape conviction was probably true – he looks like a man who gets what he wants, whenever he wants and I wouldn’t put my money on a pretty lady managing to change his mind. Frank Bruno had trouble stopping him – what’s a 160lb female going to do?

With Toback’s film, Tyson really amazes. I used to be scared of him, just from seeing him fight (especially when he started using a black gum-shield) but it looks like he’s gone the way of George Foreman and turned into a lovable teddy-bear in the past few years. Well, a teddy-bear with a Maori tattoo on its face.

He comes across as an honest and respectable sportsman entering the autumn of his life, and even breaks down on camera a few times (a phenomenon that has to be seen to be believed, as he just emits a strange growling noise from the back of his throat before you realise he’s losing his composure). He even has a few choice words to say about his accuser (which I won’t repeat here as it’s the best line of what is a remarkably funny documentary).

The film seems to present 2 Tysons: the scary monster that destroys everything in its path; and the post-jail version that is humble and dignified. After his final bout, against Irishman Kevin McBride, Tyson gives a short speech to a TV journalist while still in the ring. In front of his opponent, his opponent’s entourage, the live audience and the television audience he concedes that he just doesn’t have the heart anymore to fight. "I was just fighting to pay off the bills," he says. "I'm not an animal anymore."

The really poignant aspect of Koback’s film is a short scene showing Tyson playing with his young daughter, presumably the same girl who strangled herself accidentally on his treadmill in May 2009. Once you watch the documentary, with a newfound respect for Tyson, it’s hard not to feel sorry for the man.