One Night in Miami review – a pivotal moment for black America
almost 5 years in The guardian
Regina King’s movie puts Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke in a hotel room together in 1964. The result is theatrical, claustrophobic and immensely watchable
The premise is the Fantasy Football of drama: imagine a select bunch of historical figures, together in one room, putting the world to rights. Tom Stoppard’s play Jumpers (Lenin, Tzara, James Joyce) set the trend, and more recently, Kemp Powers’s 2013 play One Night in Miami imagined a summit between four African-American legends: Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (soon to become Muhammad Ali), football hero turned movie star Jim Brown and soul legend Sam Cooke. In fact, these four really did meet in Miami in February 1964.
Powers has now adapted his play for the debut feature by actor and director Regina King (TV’s Watchmen, Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk). King opens out Powers’s drama somewhat, notably in an extended intro, but the action is largely restricted to a single hotel room. The occasion for the meeting is the Clay-Sonny Liston fight in Miami – after which Malcolm X summons the other three to celebrate Clay’s championship win. The guests expect a party, only to find that their sober-minded host intends an evening of “reflection” – with ice cream the only refreshment. Continue reading...