Oddly enough, One Night in Miami is the second of two nearly all-black, Oscar-baity theater-to-cinema productions to come out in the past few weeks. But One Night in Miami has the advantage of focusing on four instantly recognizable and fascinating black icons -- Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim brown.
Neither film totally breaks out of the confines of being clearly based on a stage play -- but One Night in Miami is still terrific, well-paced and riveting. When the conversation is this electric, as are the performances -- it's engrossing instead of claustrophobic.
It imagines a fictional meeting between these four remarkable men the night after Muhammad Ali unexpectedly won the heavyweight title against Sonny Liston in 1964.
It's the directorial debut of the great Regina King and she has clearly transferred her own talent and generosity as an actress to her work behind the camera seamlessly. All four stars of this film are given amble room to shine, to be charismatic, to be combative and moving. And it's a tribute to her and the film, that these iconic figures never feel like cookie cutter caricatures.
Yes, Eli Goree does a pitch perfect emulation of Muhammad Ali's distinct sing-song voice and Kingsley Ben-Adir has Malcolm's pensive physicality down pat -- but these are fully realized characterizations that both speak to their legacies and their heights.
Aldis Hodge has the hardest role, especially since Jim Brown is best known from his stoic gravitas, not his verbosity -- but her acquits himself well. And Goree's Ali, while dominating the first act of the film tends to recede more into the background as the principle, most pointed conflict emerges between -- Cooke (played beautifully by Leslie Odom, Jr.) and Malcolm over whether assimilation or provocation is the best means to advance the cause of black liberation.
Their arguments and perspectives are complicated and nuanced, and King wisely doesn't allow any of the characters to emerge as superior to any of the others when it comes to expressing their feelings and values.
The debate they're having was relevant then, but it's still relevant today. And the fact that nearly all of these men (with the exception of Brown) were doomed in their own way -- Cooke was killed later that year, Malcolm the following one, and Ali, who poignantly boasts of wanting to fight into his old age, would become a shell of his former self for roughly the last 35 years of his life thanks to a debilitating battle with Parkinson's disease.
I may be most impressed with Ben-Adir. Denzel Washington has played the most iconic version of Malcolm X or stage and screen. Others have attempted to capture his essence (Mario Van Peebles in Ali comes to mind) but they have all paled in comparison to Denzel's take -- until now.
He wisely underplays the role, only occasionally erupting into righteous fury. Instead, this a more sensitive and gentle version of Malcolm, one who speaks in more hushed tones and is oozing admiration for his peers even when he admonishes them.
King avoids heavy-handedness, which is the Achilles hill of period civil rights-influenced films like these. And even though I saw the finale coming from a mile away -- any true Sam Cooke fan would -- it doesn't make it any less powerful.
Simply put, this is a must-see film -- it's not just a history lesson, it's too infused with feeling for that. It's one of the best films of the past 12 months and it will surely establish Regina King as not just one of the great actors of her generation but one of the great up-and-coming filmmakers too.
No comments:
Post a Comment