9 Criminally Underrated 2013 Films You Probably Missed

2. Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight

Stephen Frears' portrait of the high court case following Muhammad Ali's refusal to answer the Vietnam draft on religious grounds is not the easiest film to watch. It is wordy (to a fatal degree for some audiences looking for something less substantial) and weighty, and Frears chose not to cast anyone as Muhammad Ali in a film that should have been about him, but the truth is, the film was hugely rewarding, and was a triumph of excellent casting and restrained, intelligent writing. The cast was phenomenal, pitting the likes of Christopher Plummer, Frank Langella and Danny Glover against a new breed of actors led by Benjamin Walker, and the story, which is complex and confounding in places, but which just about avoids crossing too far into court room procedural fog, is ultimately very entertaining. Plummer in particular is brilliant, particularly when his personal story is peeled back a little more, and the use of archive footage of Ali proves an inspired move. Why You Didn't See It It was another Made For TV movie, and it was probably a tough sell (if not as much as Behind The Candelabra) considering its bias towards more loquacious scenes, and less on eye-catching drama.