ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Regina King (15, 114 mins)
An adaptation of Kemp Power’s 2013 stage play of the same name, concerning an historic and fictional meeting of black icons in 1964 on the night that Cassius Clay, soon to be Mohammed Ali, made boxing history with his shock defeat of Sonny Liston. Post-fight, at a motel, there’s a very talky celebratory meeting of Clay, activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke and NFL star and fledgling actor Jim Brown – embodied here by Kingsley Ben-Adir, Leslie Odom Jnr, Eli Goree and Aldis Hodge respectively.
As the night carries on, the initial celebrations turn into a weighty and pointed argument about the role of these black icons in society. Cooke may have had his own label but his songs up to that point had been lightweight; Brown had just taken a part in a western, albeit playing second fiddle to a white star. Cassius Clay expresses concerns over converting to Islam, and while Malcolm X attempts to galvanise them all, he’s wrestling with leaving the Nation Of Islam himself, concerned about his own future safety. At one point, he provokes Cooke by playing him Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind, arguing that now in 1964 the time to act has long passed.
Barnstorming speeches come thick and fast, mostly from Ben-Adir – his confrontation with Odom Jnr, about the meaning of his own artistry, proving pivotal and crackling with thespian fireworks. Poignancy weighs heavily in this pair’s exchanges, their own untimely deaths were not far away. All the performances are excellent, in fact, yet the film cannot escape its stage origins: despite Regina King’s efforts to open out the action, this mostly remains in a hotel room.
A timely examination of black power in all its configurations and the degree to which how little has truly changed, One Night In Miami is a worthy if occasionally inert drama and an assured directorial debut.
Streaming on Netflix now
words KEIRON SELF