Movie Breakdown: One Night In Miami (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
Regina King has been on a tear as an actor these last few years, so I am very curious about her first film behind the camera. If that wasn’t enough to peak my interest, the film is based on a play by Kemp Powers, co-director and writer of recent Pixar stunner, Soul.
Post-Screening Ramble:
The tagline for Regina King’s directorial debut could’ve been, “Sam Cooke, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Malcolm X walk into a hotel room…” Because, well, that’s what happens. Based on true events, King’s film fictionalizes an encounter between four of the most famous men of the last century as each struggles to come to grips with their celebrity and the impact of it. Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) has just won his first world title against Sonny Liston in Miami and to celebrate he’s gathered his close friends – Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) – for a night that quickly sidesteps raucous partying and – to the dismay of most – leans into philosophic debates about the state of Black culture and particularly these individual’s roles in it. Malcolm X wants each man present to do more with what they’ve achieved, to leverage their celebrity to help raise Black culture up, starting with Cassius Clay converting to Islam and becoming the face of X’s breakaway sect of The Nation of Islam. And that’s the film – four men, stylishly appointed, debating the politics of civil rights in a variety of rooms. It’s captivating. King takes Kemp Power’s original play (and his screenplay) and ably projects it onto the silver screen, injecting just enough motion to buoy the brilliant acting on display. Kingsley Ben-Adir is the crux of almost every scene of the film and his Malcolm X is the perfect amount of charm, intellect and fire-and-brimstone. His head-to-head debate with Sam Cooke – for most of the film – is the highlight, with Leslie Odom Jr. capturing Cooke’s persona and voice seamlessly. This is a film about the differing threads of a revolution, but more so, a film about how earnest, real, sometimes supportive conversation can help to tie them together. King’s first directorial debut is nothing more than a success, doing just enough with the source material to provide just enough energy for it crackle on screen, without sacrificing a single strand of the deep thought on display.
One Last Thought:
The only other time I’ve seen Kingsley Ben-Adir is as the bumbling detective in the Netflix holiday flick Noelle. To say it took a second for me to recontextualize him as one of the key figures of the Civil Rights Movement is an understatement.
