It’s February 25, 1964, and four men in the prime of their lives are in a hotel room to celebrate history in the making. Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), soon to be Muhammad Ali, is riding the high of becoming the heavyweight champion of the world at just 22 years old. He’s joined by his spiritual mentor and political activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), charismatic soul singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and NFL star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) to celebrate his victory and to examine their respective places in the world during the ongoing Civil Rights movement.
One Night in Miami walks a delicate tightrope of being both timeless and of the time it depicts. The conversations about race, power, and influence are still being had to this day—and the film’s dynamo ensemble actively rejects the notion that Black experiences are in any way monolithic. Some may find One Night in Miami to be quiet or uneventful, or that it may not live up to the high caliber performances that electrify it, and that may be true. King reveals her directorial shortcomings in her sense of pacing, and fails to transform Powers’s play in a way that suits the unique medium of film. But King and the actors at the heart of One Night in Miami make its most quiet moments compelling, letting its audience become a fly on the wall on the fictional fringes of history. v
