What works on a theatre stage, doesn't necessarily work on the big screen. 'One Night in Miami' is proof of it. It might have been a good idea to write a stage play about what could have happened during the night in february 1964, when Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown spent an evening in a motel room. But it wasn't a good idea to adapt that play into a movie.
The result is predictable: four men talking in a room. What they talk about is interesting: music, politics, race relations, and how they interact. They discuss, they tease each other, they exchange insults, they almost fight, they drink (except for Malcolm X), they laugh now and then (not very often).
But that's not enough for a good movie. The film needs a story with a beginning and an end, it lacks action and suspense, the characters are built around their place in the history books, not as if they were real human beings. The conversations are not smooth and natural, but feel contrived and artificial. The whole thing has the feel of a history lesson.
To give the movie a more cinematic feel, scenes have been added before and after the meeting in the motel room. They are meant to put some perspective on the discussions in the room. But they make things even worse. They feel like add-ons, and some of them are hammering in a message about race relations that's already very clear.
Review of One Night in Miami...
