Tyson is not the only battler in town. Opening night attraction of Sheffield's Doc/Fest back in November, Thriller From Manila is an exactingly made documentary made to fulfill a pre-determined thesis: Ali bad, Frazier good. After that screening, the producers and director conceded as much. The film works to prove Joe Frazier's view that Muhammad Ali was a champion Machiavellian and taunter for the ages, as if weakening your opponent before a hoped-for pummeling were not simply good form. Further, a provocative case is made for Ali's verbal jousting rising to vicious racism. Formally, John Dower's a talented director; the editing, from montage to pacing, is aces, and the choice of music from the 1975 era is often choice. (The clearances must have cost a fortune.) The eye-opening archival footage of events before and during the third, final Frazier-Ali match-up are sweet, but boldly from Frazier's point-of-view. There's a bit from Frazier's last surviving ring man, an elderly man in his kitchen wearing his finest plumage that erupts unexpectedly in a scene of documentary Kismet, the finest thing in the enterprise. It's a great, heretofore-unheard anecdote. Frazier comes off as a survivor, a battler, and a resentful dullard.