One Night in Miami...

If you've ever read Jean-Paul Sartre's Huit clos/No Exit, this movie will look very familiar. It's the story of four men - four very famous men - who spend an evening in a motel room after one of them, Cassius Clay (soon to become Mohammed Ali), defeats Sonny Listen for the World Heavyweight Championship. As in Sartre's play, they rehash each other's past lives, rip each other and themselves apart, etc. The "only" difference is that, in order to turn the original play on which this is based into a movie, about half an hour of extraneous material is added at the beginning before the four get to the motel room.

The acting here is all first rate. I can't tell you how close the actors come to impersonating the originals, but that's irrelevant, because this is still basically a play "based on historical characters" and not a pseudo-documentary. (The meeting of the four never actually took place.) It is a discussion of each Black man's obligation to participate in some way in the Civil Rights movement delivered in dialogue form, as Plato did with his Dialogues over 2,000 years ago.

There are times when the discussions don't sound "natural" - whatever that means. (Almost none of No Exit sounds natural, except perhaps for a convention of philosophers.) How much that bothers you will vary with your tolerance for philosophy staged in theatrical form. My recommendation would be to skip the first 20 minutes or so of the movie and just get down to the motel scene.

If you have read a biography of Malcolm X, or seen Spike Lee's movie about him, certain parts of this movie dealing with him will be clearer, in particular his relationship with the Nation of Islam. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Powerful film. Regina King did such a great job at directing and the film looked beautiful. The subject matter was incredibly interesting and couldn't have come at a better time.

Overall, I think this was a very fine film. Affecting, intelligent. And a great "meeting of the minds" what-if scenario. Some things were better than others. The actor who played Ali nailed a young version of The Greatest. The Malcolm X character was played with some of the real Malcom's fervor and zeal. But having read Malcom X's biography, I find the real Malcolm was stronger and, at times, more severe than he was played here. I understand though the film wanted to capture more of his humanity and vulnerability, which I could appreciate. The boxing scenes didn't look like anything like the way the real Ali fought and were a bit flat. And it took quite a while for the film to get going. But once it does... once it brings these four great men together, it's very good.

What do 4 African American community icons talk about in a hotel room in Miami?

It's a fictional meeting, yes, but the content discussed could not be more real.

The film focuses on civil rights and the increasingly influential role of African Americans in American society, whether in sport, music, politics or society in general.

The actors are perfect for the roles they play, giving essential authenticity to the story, and not just that each character was the raw reflection of the areas in which they are inserted.

The discussions / talks are captivating and well-paced, without any boring moments.

Regina King really knew how to make this film, without too much drama or too much "demonization" of the white man, and giving to the audience a truth that many still try to hide nowadays.

For the first 20 minutes or so of this film, I thought "This definitely feels more like a play than a movie." But then the conversations got going. And the actors started truly inhabiting their roles. And I stopped wondering how much of this night's events were fictional. By that point, it did not just feel cinematic. It felt moving. The performances alone were worth it, but their moments talking together might stick with me even longer. Kudos to Powers and King for giving a stageplay new life and new relevance.