One Night in Miami… (2020)
(Amazon Streaming, December 2021) Fan-fiction goes respectable in actress-turned-director Regina King’s One Night in Miami, a film built on the idea of what could have happened when real-life friends Malcom X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke — all legends in their own fields — spent an evening together. The bare bones of the story are factual: they did spend an evening together in a Miami hotel room, and they were all at their own crossroads at the time. (Two of them would be dead by the following year.) The rest is fictionalization, albeit good and believable drama as the four men, recognizing their growing personal power and influence, discuss what black men could do with what they had at their disposal. Reflecting real-life, the most compelling member of the cast has to be Eli Goree as Cassius Clay, with Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X not far behind. All four main actors (with the cast being rounded off by Aldis Hodge as Jim Brown and Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke) do well in a dramatically challenging film, with the tight space/time unity allowing for debates reflecting the tensions of the Civil Rights movement. As a directing debut for King, it’s a success — the film walks a fine line between fact, drama and discussing big ideas. While nighttime hotel setting ensures that the film’s palette remains monotonous, that same theatrical feeling creates a fertile dramatic environment for the characters to exchange their views on big topics. One Night in Miami should be particularly fascinating for anyone interested in those figures or the era in which it’s set, but there’s a lot to admire in the rest of what the film has to offer as well.
