Bojangles

It's a biopic of tap dance and movie legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (Gregory Hines). Fannie S. Clay (Kimberly Elise) is unimpressed at first but becomes the love of his life and his wife. Marty Forkins (Peter Riegert) is his lifelong manager and friend.

This is a Showtime TV movie. Hines is good and there's no denying his tap dancing. This is good but I feel that it could be better. It skips along his life. Maybe it should concentrate solely on his controversial contribution to black culture. There is a great narrative there and this movie does a solid job laying out the facts. It's the connective tissue and the narrative flow that needs more bulking up. This has the main points but there is more to be told. I'm taken with his big confrontation with a young protester at the end. It is such a moment of today with BLM. It needs more space and more work. It doesn't even give the year of the incident. It should place it somewhere in the Civil Rights era and give it context. It probably didn't actually happen but that's also part of the point.