Review: One Night in Miami

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Previously reviewed at TIFF 2020!

PLOT: Following his win over Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) – who would soon take the name Muhammad Ali – celebrates in a Miami motel room with friends Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir).

REVIEW: ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI comes to TIFF hot on the heels of playing to rave reviews at Venice. There it made history as being the first film ever directed by an African-American woman ever to play the fest. Certainly, it’s already one of the most celebrated debuts in years, with Regina King, fresh off an Oscar win for IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK and winning raves on HBO’s “Watchmen”, making her feature directing debut.

It’s certainly a striking first feature for King, although it should be noted that she has a long list of directorial credits on TV, with her having helmed multiple episodes of everything from “Southland” (which she starred in), to “Scandal”, “This is Us”, “Animal Kingdom” and more. This is a polished, ambitious film, being an adaptation of the play by Kemp Powers, who also wrote the screenplay (and is next working on Pixar’s SOUL).

In it, Powers/King imagine an evening meeting between four of the most important African-American cultural figures of their time. Several of them are wrestling over their roles in the bigger picture of the Civil Rights Movement, while also maintaining their hard-won careers. The heart of the movie is Leslie Odom Jr.’s Sam Cooke, who’s climbed the charts with huge crossover hits like “Cupid”, and owns the masters to all of his recordings. Yet, to Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Malcolm X, he’s not doing enough for the cause, and much of the film is devoted to the two sparring over Cooke’s career. Malcolm X mocks him for the fact that his music is pop catering to his white fans, while Cooke fights back, mentioning the fact that he’s using his huge success as a way to open doors for other black artists.

Meanwhile, Aldis Hodge’s Jim Brown is excited about his burgeoning career in Hollywood (he was only a year away from co-starring in THE DIRTY DOZEN), while Clay boasts and boasts about his powers in the ring, but seems torn over whether or not he should join the Nation of Islam, especially with Malcolm X growing so disillusioned with leader Elijah Muhammad. It’s provocative, fascinating stuff that’s literate and high minded.

The performances are fantastic, with Odom Jr and Ben-Adir especially good as Cooke and Malcolm X, as throughout the film you really do see both sides of the argument. If you know anything about their eventual fates (both men would be dead within a year), their often adversarial but grudgingly affectionate relationship becomes even more bittersweet.

It should also be said that Goree is a dead ringer for Clay/Ali at this point in his career, while Hodge is excellent as Brown, particularly in one amazing scene where he goes to visit a wealthy white benefactor, played by Beau Bridges. The two are chummy, but when Brown, being friendly, offers to help move a couch, he’s faced with a shocking moment of racism that feels like a punch in the gut.

King, for her part, lets the performances breathe without falling prey to some of the traps first-time directors succumb to. It’s relatively lean, running under two hours, and she also opens up the premise to scenes outside the hotel, peppered with familiar faces (Michael Imperioli, Christopher Gorham as Johnny Carson, Lance Reddick, Jeremy Pope doing a spot-on Jackie Wilson, etc.). Meanwhile, Terrence Blanchard’s score is low-key and effective, while Odom Jr has a few showstopping sequences where he perfectly imitates Cooke’s singing.

Certainly, ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI seems like a potential Oscar film from Amazon (who’ve picked up the rights and should be streaming it on Prime before the end of the year). It turns out that King is not only a powerhouse in front of the camera but behind it too. This is an enlightening film that’s well worth checking out.

One Night in Miami

AMAZING

9

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