‘Bob Marley: One Love’ Attempts to Capture a Singular Superstar

February 9, 2024

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Get Up, Stand Up, Go See a Movie. (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Daniel Mellville Jr., Sevana, Hector Lewis, Tosin Cole

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Political Violence and Some Herbal Remedies

Release Date: February 14, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s 1976, and Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is on the brink of unfathomably massive superstardom. Meanwhile, his native Jamaica is being torn asunder by violence between rival political factions. After an assassination attempt leaves him and his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch) seriously injured, he flees for his safety to England. Meanwhile, he’s also in the midst of a world tour and preparation for a new album that will become the most acclaimed of his career. On top of all that, he’s trying to pretty much unite all of humanity with spiritual enlightenment. Alas, a deadly disease is looming in the way of every single one of his plans.

What Made an Impression?: Savior of the World?: I don’t know if this was intentional on the part of director Reinaldo Marcus Green or his team of screenwriters, but Bob Marley: One Love struck me as a rather messianic story. The parallels with Marley’s life and Jesus Christ are striking: death in their 30s, attempts on their lives, the spread of a new religion, efforts to forgive their enemies. The connection isn’t perfect, as One Love certainly doesn’t portray Bob as immaculate, and his cause of death is cancer, rather than a state-sanctioned execution. But it is notable that the movie’s story begins just a few years before his death, with some flashbacks to his childhood. Rock stars often inspire religious fervor in their legions of fans, and I don’t know if that’s ever been more true than in the case of Bob Marley.
Ya Mon or Not Ya Mon?: I’m no expert on Jamaican patois, and One Love doesn’t make much of an effort to accommodate me or anyone else who lacks that fluency. Even Kingsley Ben-Adir has admitted that he didn’t understand everything the real Bob Marley was saying when he watched videos of him to prepare for the role. And there are scenes within the film when non-Jamaicans struggle to make sense of him. Captions might have helped in this regard, but only to a certain extent. Still, I always got the gist of what was happening, and I ultimately appreciated the decision to keep it authentic this way.
Getting the Story Out There: One Love wisely keeps its narrative focus on a compressed time period, but besides that, it doesn’t distinguish itself with a whole lot of personality among the rock star biopic heap. We don’t get to see much of Ben-Adir performing, and when Bob Marley’s songs do play, it’s usually just a non-diegetic jukebox approach. Then the story stops somewhat abruptly, and we get the typical end titles about what else happened. Quite frankly, some of the events that were left out sound a lot more dramatically compelling than what was left in. So while One Love doesn’t quite reach the loftiest of heights, it at least doesn’t detract from its subject’s legacy. And if it inspires some viewers to dig into his discography and embrace his message of unity, well then it will have brought some good into the world.

Bob Marley: One Love is Recommended If You Want: To Research Everything About Bob Marley That Wasn’t Included in the Movie

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Dreadlocks

‘King Richard’ Teaches Me Tennis

November 30, 2021

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King Richard (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Will Smith, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Aunjanue Ellis, Tony Goldwyn, Jon Bernthal

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Running Time: 145 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: November 19, 2021 (Theaters and HBO Max)

At the beginning of the 2021 film King Richard, Richard Williams (not the actual Richard Williams, but the version of him played by Will Smith) is listening in his car about how the proper way to hit a tennis serve involves making a high-five gesture while striking the ball. This prompted me to immediately move my butt and try that technique out while sitting in the theater. I love watching tennis, and I’ve been meaning to get around to playing the game myself. (I guess I’m just looking for the right doubles partner.)

So anyway, that bit of “practice” immediately had me hyped, and that excitement lasted for the entire two hour-plus runtime. I probably would’ve been excited anyway, as sports biopics tend to inspire that reaction. But it was pretty essential that it happened right away, so that Richard’s stubbornness didn’t wear me down. In conclusion, I really loved ALL the instructional moments of this movie.

Grade: 4 Open Stances out of 1 Closed Stance

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Monsters and Men’ Knows How to Recreate a Tough Reality, But It’s a Little Undercooked

September 27, 2018

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CREDIT: NEON

This review was originally posted on News Cult in September 2018.

Starring: John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison Jr.

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Language, But Nothing Particularly Explicit Given the Subject Matter

Release Date: September 28, 2018 (Limited)

Monsters and Men, which details the fallout of a police officer fatally shooting an unarmed black man in Brooklyn, is emblematic of a certain strain of realistic film that leaves you hanging but justifies its anticlimax by ensuring verisimilitude. While its lack of a firm ending – or even a firm thesis statement – may be true to life, it is not exactly a formula for great cinema. It is respectable enough and hard to get angry at, but it is entirely legitimate if, as a filmgoer, you would prefer more satisfaction. A happy ending is not necessarily what we’re looking for here, but a firmer political stance or a clearer artistic point of view would have been beneficial.

The action is divided into three vignettes centered around three young men of color in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood. There’s Manny (Anthony Ramos), the boy who recorded the shooting on his phone and struggles with the potential consequences of releasing the footage; Dennis (John David Washington), a black police officer who explains the racism he has experienced to his colleagues and the officer’s perspective to his friends and relatives; and Zyrick (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a high school baseball star being courted by the major leagues who feels drawn to activism despite his father’s fears for his safety.

Manny and Zyrick’s dilemmas are compelling but ultimately thinly sketched. Dennis’ predicament, however, could have been meaty enough to build an entire film around. Washington has already played another code-switching cop this year in the much rowdier and more effective BlacKkKlansman. That film, in attempting to explain how a black man could justify a job in law enforcement, had the benefit of digesting the past, noting for one thing the significance of breaking racial barriers. Explaining this dilemma in 2018 may be an even thornier issue; it’s a topic worth tackling by a bold film, but Monsters and Men isn’t quite bold enough.

Monsters and Men is Recommended If You Like: The long journey of racial equality, Slice-of-life short stories

Grade: 3 out of 5 Dilemmas