A Night in Miami

A Night in Miami

Director: Regina King. Cast: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr., Lance Reddick

An extraordinary night in 1964 when 4 amazing men (Cassius Clay, Malcom X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown) met to celebrate the unexpected victory of Clay. It will be the night that will mark a sort of turning point in all the men’s lives. After a very dynamic and lush beginning, the film soon settles down into a more claustrophobic setting, inside a hotel room, clearly exposing its stagey origins (it is based on a play). It is indeed a very dialogue-heavy film, not all of it very subtle (and some feels actually a bit forced and some slightly impenetrable), but there are undoubtedly some very powerful moments too. And by the time you get to the epilogue you feel like you’ve witnessed something quite profound. It is obviously a very timely film with all the talk about #BlackLivesMatter, and it’s clearly screaming to be noticed at the forthcoming Award Season (It’s going to be released at Xmas in the cinema and later in January on Amazon Prime to capitalise on that too).It’s not completely success as a film in my view, but the charismatic performances and a very controlled, un-showy direction by Regina King (here on her debut film) remind us all about these extraordinary people in an extraordinary time.