One Night in Miami Parent Guide

One Night in Miami depicts a fraught discussion on February 25^th, 1964 between four prominent African Americans – boxer Cassius Clay (soon to be known as Mohammed Ali and played by Eli Goree), political activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and NFL star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge). The men are ostensibly celebrating Clay’s victory in the ring but the party is strained. Brown expects an evening of women and booze but Malcolm X is a devout Muslim and his idea of a party involves vanilla ice cream and political exhortation. As Malcolm badgers Cooke to be more visible in the struggle for racial equality, the entertainer becomes defensive and angry. Brown and Clay endeavor to smooth things over and the men debate their perspectives on achieving racial justice in America.

The movie is based on a play by Kemp Powers, whose imagined script was inspired by a real-life meeting between Clay, Brown, Cooke, and Malcolm X. Although One Night in Miami enjoyed an award-winning theatrical run, it struggles on the big screen. The dialogue, despite being frequently clever and insightful, often feels stiff and contrived. The sets are claustrophobic and I felt like I was watching a play: the story never manages to jump off the stage and on to the big screen. And while the acting is generally good, Kinglsey Ben-Adir is underwhelming in his role – to be fair, it’s impossible to match Denzel Washington’s powerhouse performance in the Malcolm X biopic.

If you’re considering sharing this movie with teenagers, you will want to be aware of the 80+ profanities that litter the film as well as frequent scenes of main characters imbibing alcohol. You will also want to consider the glacially slow pace of the film, most of which consists of men sitting and talking in a hotel room.

Watching One Night in Miami is a frustrating exercise, mainly because there’s a better film locked inside. The prologue that sets up the men’s individual stories is effective, as is the conclusion. But the middle of the movie drags, despite the important debates between the main characters. Perhaps director Regina King needs to take some pages out of Aaron Sorkin’s book – his political films keep his characters moving, which ensures his audiences stay awake long enough to absorb his message.