Boom Boom The World vs Boris Becker review: Epic Apple documentary offers sympathetic look at the rise and fall of a tennis great

Directed by Alex Gibney — a very important filmmaker, indeed — Boom! Boom! is stitched together from two interviews that Gibney conducted with Becker. The first took place in 2019, when the champion’s troubles were just beginning, and the second in 2022, days before his sentencing. It’s a palpably tense exchange, and Becker breaks down within five minutes of episode one, which runs for around an hour and 40 minutes. To open the film with a shot of Becker tearing up is certainly a choice; Gibney clearly wants the viewer on Becker’s side, the sooner the better.

But a curious thing happens an hour-and-a-half in. Just as the charming Becker is narrating a dramatic story about the moment he quit taking sleeping pills, Gibney interrupts — not in person, but through his voiceover — to fact-check him. It’s the first time in the otherwise reverential film that Becker’s spiel is countered. It’s the first time that you get the sense you’re in the company of an unreliable narrator.

But Gibney doesn’t deploy this tactic ever again, which is strange. Instead, he allows Becker to speak about his trials and tribulations unchallenged. It’s only deep in episode two, which runs nearly two hours long, that Gibney takes over and quickly summarises Becker’s many problems, including but not limited to tax evasion, mounting debt, alimony, and an almost superhuman ability to attract trouble. Even after declaring bankruptcy, for instance, Becker allowed himself to be swindled by a crook, and accepted a diplomatic passport that he later found out was fake.

Unfortunately for Becker, defendants can’t plead naïveté in court. But movies can. Boom! Boom! doesn’t vilify the champion, nor does it excuse him, but it certainly presents him in a favourable light. At one point, he’s compared to a child, and the title of the film itself makes it seem as if Becker’s the victim. Gibney’s narration, on the other hand, is mostly curious and non-judgmental, but even he can’t tone down his own disbelief at Becker’s careless mismanagement of funds. For instance, the champion once agreed to sign a document out of friendship, but this nearly implicated him in a $40 million lawsuit years later, when the friend turned foe.

But all this happens towards the end of the film. For the most part, Gibney essentially fanboys over Becker, quizzing him about his most memorable victories, his most disheartening losses, and in one cheeky moment, asking him and the people closest to him at the time about a sneaky psychological tactic that he deployed against Andre Agassi at Wimbledon. Becker knew that Agassi’s marriage with model Brooke Shields was on the rocks, and so, after winning a crucial point, he blew a kiss at her in the stands. Agassi was rattled. The incident went down in infamy.

Agassi doesn’t show up in the film, but several of Becker’s biggest rivals drop by to reminisce about their battles. Funnily enough, Boom! Boom! makes for a splendid double bill with last year’s significantly more intimate John McEnroe documentary, titled McEnroe. But stylistically, Boom! Boom! is a more snappy affair. Gibney occasionally adopts a Western aesthetic, drawing parallels between tennis players and gunslingers; he uses old rock ’n’ roll in multiple key moments, and introduces ‘characters’ with their own personalised title cards. It’s a light-footed film, almost as agile as Becker was on the court.

But it lacks his icy ruthlessness, especially the second episode. The first, on the other hand, is an enlightening capsule of a particularly entertaining period in the sport’s history, and a generous profile of one of its most flamboyant poster boys.

Boom! Boom! The World vs Boris Becker
Director – Alex Gibney
Rating – 4/5