One Night In Miami

Adapted from Kemp Powers’ stage play, Regina King’s directorial debut, “Inspired by true events,” takes place in the hours after the Clay vs. Liston fight in February, 1964.  Four friends, boxing champion Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), minister Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and NFL fullback Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), convene at the Hampton House, a run down hotel in Liberty City—the Miami housing project authorized by President Roosevelt in the 1930’s.

Three rounds into the fight, Clay’s seemingly inevitable defeat turns around when his left hook cuts Cooper whose profuse bleeding hampers his ability to defend from the former’s barrage in the fifth round.   Clay’s success contrasts with Malcolm’s conflicts with others in the Nation of Islam, Sam Cooke’s disastrous performance at the Copa Cabana, and Jim Brown’s visit with a Mr. Carlton who lives in a plantation house and says, “Our families go way back.”

Just when you sense that Mr. Carlton’s ancestors owned slaves of whom Jim’s family are descendants, despite complimenting his achievements and saying, “If there’s anything I can ever do for you,” Mr. Carlton refuses to let him in the house because he’s Black.  This isn’t the exact word used, but you get the idea.

Each of the four men enters the story optimistic of the impact of his performance on the white community.  Even Malcolm, whom we may perceive as disillusioned, puts on an affectation in public to intimidate white people.  Gathered at the Hampton, once behind closed doors, they can relate to one another in ways only they understand.

Trying to frame my review, I thought of how a white man would’ve directed this film.  A common argument proffered by opponents of diversity movements is that Blacks only make up 13 percent of the population. Therefore, they rationalize, of course you shouldn’t see that many Blacks in front of or behind the camera.  But representation isn’t about qualifications, apportionment, or quotas.  It’s about perspective.  Achieving that requires a different gaze seeing these men as they see each other, not as outsiders see them.

This is where first-time director Regina King shines.  In an early scene, the white manager at the Copa tells Cooke, whose single “Twistin’ the Night Away” peaked at #1 on the R&B charts, that his show bombed.  He immediately fires back, “Motherfucker, have you ever made a quarter million dollars singing?”

But as soon as the door closes behind the manager, one of Cooke’s bandmates snaps, “He ain’t wrong, though!”

Such introspection from a white director might come off as backhanded, not because it’s always their intent to denigrate, but because the analysis is facile.  Everyone is their own worst critic.  So, it follows, that nobody can deconstruct all sides of the Black experience better than Black people.

Later, after Salah (the ritual prayers of the Muslim faith), Malcolm tells Cassius, “It might not hurt to tone down the rhetoric until after the fight.”

As the night wears on, Clay’s playful arrogance gives way to X’s discontent.  After the four pass a football around on the hotel rooftop, Malcolm and Sam get into an argument.  Cooke says, “Don’t you think my determining my creative and business destiny is every bit as inspiring to people as you standing at a podium trying to piss them off?”

What white director would give Black characters this kind of depth?  What male director, for that matter?  Society misattributes Malcolm’s masculinity and potency  to his aggressiveness, but here King destabilizes the myth and the power of the Angry Black Male stereotype.  Malcolm cries more than anybody; the crooning Cooke cries once.

“You will never be loved by the people you’re trying so hard to win over,” Malcolm fires back.  This undercuts the notion that he’s a persuasive orator.  How can such a public figure expect to win over his own people by verbally assaulting them?

The debate that emerges raises a question about what “the fight” actually means.  It’s refreshing to see a movie in which the characters aren’t right or wrong, but offering different takes—sometimes argumentatively—about what the fight means to them.   Fitting, then, that Cooke admonishes Malcolm for his incendiary remarks about Kennedy’s assassination.  In Ben Bradlee’s 1975 memoir, Conversations With Kennedy, the latter coined the phrase, “Don’t get mad. Get even.”

Cooke owned the rights to all his master recordings, and explains that every time the Rolling Stones sell a copy of their cover of The Valentino’s “It’s All Over Now”, lead singer Bobby Womack and producer Cooke get paid royalties.  “What’s better than being 94 on the Hot 100?  Being number one,” he argues, referring to the larger success of the Stones’ version.

“Everybody,” Cooke says, “talks about how they want a piece of the pie.  Well, I want the goddamn recipe!”

The laconic, wry Brown, impossible to intimidate, takes a similar tack.  He understands that only as long as he keeps winning for the Cleveland Browns, no white person can quash his success.

From different angles, they all land ultimately on the understanding that, like it or not,  economics drives social change.  In 2020, we’ve seen cities around the country respond to demands for law enforcement reform in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis Police.  The largest coordinated wave of protests seen since the 1960’s amplified the noise level to a point where it seems like change is inevitable.

Spike Lee’s films over the past thirty years attempted, repeatedly, to awaken America to racial inequities.  But while his messages land with a stylistic punch, King elegantly encapsulates hers in intimate, revealing dialogues, especially one.  In the third act, all four characters’ viewpoints converge into one after Clay announces to the press that he’s changing his name to Muhammad Ali.

After picking up some alcohol at a corner liquor store, sitting in Cooke’s 1963 Ferrari 250GT Lusso—a reminder of how much more financially successful he is than the others—Cooke worries, “There’s gonna be a target on your back.”

“It was gonna be there anyway,” answers Ali, defiantly, recalling how activism didn’t prevent the deaths of four schoolgirls, referring to the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.

He finishes, “Power just means a world where we’re safe to be ourselves.”

ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI makes its North American premiere at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival.