The glory days were so devastatingly swift that Tyson disappoints in terms of too few seconds of grainy ring  videos being available to include in this documentary.  Nor is there much in the way of incisive footage of the past, not childhood or young manhood, celebrity, world travel or conquests. Indie director and writer James Toback's docu-study does not convey nobility or articulate self-awareness in its one character or the awe that inspires fear at the human condition, so it's hardly the advertised “modern day version of classic Greek tragedy.”

At forty-two, twice Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year Iron Mike is a financial and physical wreck of what once was, but no lesson is here to be grasped, hubris or otherwise, even if extracurricular activities and poor conditioning did contribute to the fall of the mighty.

A lion’s share of the ninety minutes shows compelling close-ups of the former heavyweight champion, seated in various places or on an airy balcony, and a couple trite takes of him against beach waves at sunset.

Probable facts emerge: an unhappy Brownsville ghetto childhood, fat, picked on, and surrounded by drugs and lewd sexuality; brushes with the law and incarceration; his rescue by “Cus” D’Amato, also born into New York City poverty, who took the teen into his family and Catskill home to harden him body and soul for heavyweight heights. There is no reason to doubt the fighter’s unsullied worship or the depth of his hurt at the older white man’s death a year before the pupil won his first, not generally recognized crown.

It remains speculation as to what might have happened if the fighter had not lost his mentor, how different the trajectory could have turned out for him, his unsatisfactory career, and the entire tarnished, lusterless sport.

The difficulty lies in how far to accept what Tyson says, how much of it may be conscious spin or unwitting distortion. Unusual in that only one head talks, and thus dominates, the film offers no confirmation or demurral, and, admitting to “chaos of the brain,” that very head lacks the verbal and conceptual tools to plumb deeply. Then, too, there may be no recognizable bedrock behind the multiple split-screens, a scary what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

Bob Dylan’s reaction to jailed Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, about whom he was to write a social-struggle song, was “’Who are you, man? What are you? Are you what I see?’” And to Denzel Washington, who would play that fighter in a weak screen drama, “What can be seen on the outside is marvelous, but only a hint of the magnificence within.” The New Jersey middleweight studied, read and wrote in prison, but, not so intelligent or educated, Mike Tyson also makes us wonder what, if anything, lies inside and how much of the exterior is amateur PR.

Elsewhere, a former assistant manager has been “shocked” by the lies in the film and related interviews. Undeniable but forgivable discrepancies include an untrue maximum fighting weight and an almost simultaneous dismissal of, then praise for, opponent Kevin McBride. Screen remarks that he and ex Robin Givens were “too young . . . kids” do not jibe with his on-record talk about her claimed pregnancy that got them married.

Personality disorder is evident, not punch-drunkenness but some element missing. Wheat cannot be separated from chaff in opinions about boxing people, hangers-on, lovers and friends. An obscene outburst against Don King is funny; while, deserved or not, a tirade against the Miss Black America hopeful who got him imprisoned for rape, is frightening.

In a slightly high-pitched voice that breaks once or twice from emotion, the intimidator pathetically seeks to convey humbling and acquired refinement -- “the President of Istanbul” -- and is at once repugnant in frank details of his sexual preferences and insulting attitudes about women. He revels in having been the 1987 “World’s Most Popular Athlete” and in his efficiency at his trade, yet speaks of fear and nervousness, of too many fights without love for the sport and only for the money of which he has no concept. To private home videos, he affirms respect and love for a second wife with whom he messed up, and joy in his children and hopes for grandparenthood.

“Boxing doesn’t define me.” This film doesn’t, either, but that is not its fault, for the man himself has no idea. Explaining the life, he is unaware of how simultaneously untouchable and vulnerable he is, this raging bull who took the blows but never found its way and whom any bystander is terrified to approach. 

(Released by Sony Pictures Classics and rated “R” for language including sexual references.)