Movie Review: One Night in Miami…

Last evening I watched this movie called One Night in Miami… Actress Regina King directed the film, and honestly I am so proud of her for directing this movie because she is an amazing actress and this movie is just so incredible. It is based on a play by Kemp Powers, and I haven’t read the play yet but now I want to after seeing the movie. It’s kind of like with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; after seeing the film adaptation of the play by August Wilson, I really wanted to read the play and luckily I found a copy of it at the library. It definitely helped me appreciate the work of August Wilson more.

The film is about four influential figures in Black history (Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown, and Cassius Clay, who changed his named to Muhammad Ali) when they were at the height of their careers and reflecting on what role they play in the Civil Rights movement. The film takes place on February 25, 1964, in a hotel room in Miami. Honestly, the acting was incredible. And the movie shows how complex the issue of racism was during the Civil Rights because there were issues even within the Black community such as colorism. Jim Brown is sitting with Malcolm X while Sam and Cassius are going out to the liquor store, and Malcolm is criticizing Sam, Jim and Cassius for selling their talent to white people when they could be uniting with the Black community against racism. Jim makes a point that even within the Black community, there is discrimination against darker-skinned Black people, and that unlike Malcolm he has a harder time because he is darker skinned than Malcolm is.

Malcolm accuses Sam of selling his work to white executives who don’t really care about his work and just want to make a profit off of him. But Sam doesn’t take Malcolm’s insults for long, and goes into a story about how he started the British invasion. His record company had a Black musician named Bobby Womack record a song and the white British rock group, The Rolling Stones, said they wanted to record it, so Sam lets them record it and it hits number one on the music charts. However, even though it seems that The Rolling Stones are getting all of the royalties, they can’t because Bobby Womack recorded the song first, so Sam and Bobby Womack get royalties and money in their pockets each time the song is played. This proves to Malcolm that contrary to what Malcolm told him, he respects and values his worth as a Black musician in a predominantly white industry. Malcolm tries to further argue that Sam is selling out to white people because he plays a song on the record player that reminds him of Sam, a song by white singer Bob Dylan called “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Sam actually takes inspiration from that song, and he goes on the Johnny Carson Show later on and sings a song he was working on called “A Change is Gonna Come.” Malcolm accuses him of pandering to white audiences with songs like “I Love You (For Sentimental Reasons)” and “You Send Me.” (I listened to these songs after watching the movie and they are incredible.) But what he doesn’t know is that Sam is working on a song that is in align with the Civil Rights movement.

Earlier in the film Jim Brown meets with Mr. Carlton, a white family friend of his, on the porch of his house. At first Mr. Carlton and Mrs. Carlton are excited to see Jim because he has worked so hard in his career as a football player, and Mr. Carlton lets him know to reach out to him if he needs help. But then Mrs. Carlton asks Mr. Carlton to later help him move some furniture, and Mr. Carlton goes in to help, and Jim offers to help him move the furniture. But Mr. Carlton laughs and says they don’t allow Black people in their house (he doesn’t use ‘Black people’, he uses the n-word to describe Jim.) This moment reminded me not just that this was the 1960s in the deep South where Jim Crow was alive and well, but that even successful Black people were still treated as second-class citizens no matter how much success they got in their careers. It kind of reminded me of this book I read called Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, and in one part of the book she says that in 2013 an employee at a Manhattan deli falsely accused Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker of shoplifting and was frisked. It was a disturbing story but also not uncommon for many Black people, even successful people like Forest Whitaker. It showed me that we still have a long way to go in overcoming centuries of prejudice in this country and practices such as stop and frisk that disrespect the humanity of marginalized communities. It showed me that even though Forest Whitaker is this super successful actor and has gotten a lot of acclaim for his movies, he still has had to deal with racism as a Black person in this country. Likewise, even as a successful football player, Jim Brown wasn’t allowed in a white person’s house to do a simple thing like help a family friend lift their furniture.

Malcolm’s relationship with Sam, Jim and Cassius is interesting and the movie shows how Malcolm’s opinions of them impact their friendship. Cassius expresses interest in joining the Nation of Islam with Malcolm X, but then Malcolm later says he is leaving the Nation of Islam to start his own organization because his relationship with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and The Nation of Islam has tensions. In addition, Malcolm’s friendship with the three men is under public scrutiny by the government because of The Nation of Islam’s activities. Malcolm has to have two members of The Nation of Islam guarding the door to the men’s hotel room because Malcolm is at risk of being assassinated. Malcolm works on his autobiography before his assassination. I thought it was so interesting seeing how all of these men produced the work they did in the play, because growing up I only saw the end result, like I heard “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke growing up, but it was interesting how the movie illustrates the back story behind the song, which is this dialogue between him and these three other men about their role in a time of racial discrimination and unrest.

Jim retires from his football career to pursue acting full-time. At first, his friends seem skeptical because Jim doesn’t seem like the guy who would star in a Western movie, but Jim is serious about the acting work he is doing and dedicates himself to it. He says he loves football and it is still his passion but he is exploring other passions. It reminds me of when I watched this movie called Last Holiday, and in the film Georgia’s sister tells her she is going to make her debut as a country singer, and Georgia tells her there is no such thing as a Black country singer. But after working on a project on Black musical traditions and the significance of the banjo in Black culture, I realized there are a lot of Black country musicians such as Darius Rucker and Mickey Guyton, and many others whose music I have yet to explore. One of the most poignant scenes of the film was when Malcolm tells Sam it seems he doesn’t care about his music career but he went to five of his shows, and one was in Boston. At the show in Boston, another Motown singer, Jackie Wilson, performs and the crowd goes wild. Jackie finishes and wishes Sam good luck, but tells him to not fuck up. Sam’s microphone ends up going out, and it’s implied that Jackie did something to the microphone to make it not work when Sam performed. Sam is figuring out what to do, because the audience starts booing and throwing things at him, and the band immediately leaves the stage because they can’t take the humiliation anymore. Sam then has a eureka moment and leans down to tell some of the female concertgoers he is going to sing an acapella version of “Chain Gang,” so he stomps his foot to the rhythm of the song, and the girls go along with it, and pretty soon the concertgoers act as an acapella chorus for Sam while he sings the song. It brings everyone together and people stop booing him. The audience is predominantly Black, too, so there is that element of solidarity where the audience gets to sing this song they enjoy. It is a call and response type of rhythm that involves audience participation, so the audience isn’t just passively listening to the music but actively playing a part in the performance. It was a huge contrast to the scene early in the movie where Sam is playing for a white audience at a ballroom, and when he is playing his mic stand falls over and he has to pick it up, and everyone in the audience is talking or falling asleep or walking out while he performs. This shows that compared to the Black audience he performed with in Boston, the white audience didn’t value his worth as a musician.

Overall, this movie was really good and I highly recommend it.

One Night in Miami… 2020. Directed by Regina King. 1 hr 54 m. Rated R