One Night in Miami Review

On the night of February 25, 1964, Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay), Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke, and football super star Jim Brown had dinner together in a hotel in Miami. What they discussed together that night has been lost to time. But, within the span of a year, Cooke and Malcolm X would be dead and Brown would retire from football to pursue an acting career. It’s clear that this moment in time that brought together four giants of their respective arenas for a celebratory meeting after Clay’s surprise victory over Sonny Liston to claim the World Heavyweight Title of the World was a crucial one for each of the men. But even without the weight of history, One Night in Miami is a truly spectacular film, combining wonderful performances with a great script (an adaptation by Kemp Powers of his play of the same name) and the triumphant feature film directorial debut of Regina King.

It’s tempting to simply say, “Go watch this movie!” and leave it at that. I don’t want to spend time waxing poetic on what makes this film so incredible when you could just pop it on Amazon (where it is streaming for Prime members) and experience its brilliance for yourself. But, it is my job to tell you what makes it so great, so I guess I will give it a try. I’m embarrassed to say that, going into the film, I was really only familiar with Clay and Malcolm X (and, a passing familiarity at that, thanks to a US educational system that was far more interested in teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. rather than Malcolm X when it came to the Civil Rights Movement). But you better believe I immediately sought out resources to learn more about all four men after finishing the film.

While the successes of each man are addressed in an intriguing opening sequence (which was added to the script and doesn’t appear in Powers’ original play), the focus of the story is on how the group grapples with the myriad of challenges they face in their public and private lives, from the ever increasing racial tensions of the day, religion and faith, how their successes in their respective areas afford them certain perks not granted to their fellow Black men – and, in the case of Malcolm X, how his success threatens everything about his life. The wide-ranging discussions are funny, as the old and new friends shoot the shit, but also simmer and reach boiling points as different philosophies clash and common ground is hard to come by.

It’s an extraordinary story of four extraordinary men who have the strength to not only stand up for their own convictions, but who also have the strength to become vulnerable with each other. The four performances anchor the film: Kingsley Ben-Adir portrays Malcolm X as a deeply spiritual man who is struggling with his faith and the knowledge that his time may be running out; Aldis Hodge’s performance as Brown is powerful, steady, and empathetic in ways I didn’t expect; Leslie Odom Jr. proves he is more than just a song and dance man as Sam Cooke, making sure we see the simmering anger underneath his smooth veneer; and Eli Goree turns in the greatest impression of Cassius Clay I’ve ever seen, while still managing to get at the emotional struggle churning within the man as he contemplates his future within Islam. Each character has so much going on in their own life at the moment this film hits that it’s not a surprise that emotions run high at points throughout the film, but what ties it together and makes sure it doesn’t simply turn into a series of escalating hits between the men is the pacing employed by Regina King.

Now, King is a brilliant, award-winning actor. One of the finest working today. And while she has directed on television before, there was certainly no guarantee that her skills would translate to film. But boy, what a debut film. Each scene is framed with precision, setting up conflicts visually before allowing the script to take over, letting the camera linger on reaction shots just long enough to allow us to understand how a character really feels about what was just said, feelings and emotions implied through subtle nuances of performance and not words. The color palette within the shots highlights characters, situations, moments. Film, unlike television or the theatre, is a director’s medium. It is their eye that ultimately tells the story through cuts and selections made for shots and in the editing room. King proves that she more than has what it takes through her masterful manipulation of her strong cast and the excellent script. I cannot wait to see what else she has in store for us in what I suspect will be a long and storied career behind the camera.

So, yes, you should absolutely watch One Night in Miami. It’s a stunning film, with strong performances (Odom, in particular, is on many shortlists for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award), and it packs an emotional punch that I didn’t expect when I sat down to watch it. Films like this one don’t come along every year, and watching it simply takes an Amazon Prime subscription. What are you waiting for?

One Night in Miami is currently streaming on Amazon and playing in select theatres, however, due to the current pandemic, Pop Culture Maniacs does not endorse seeing films in public theatres.