‘One Night In Miami’ is a film about four fledgling African American icons – Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Same Cooke and Malcolm X – whose thoughts, potentials and actions helped shape the future for their fellow man. This film is a fictionalised version of a real night spent between the four legends and Regina King does an exceptional job for her first feature debut.
“You brothers, you could move mountains without lifting a finger”. This iconic line by Malcolm X is how the trailer starts and the goosebumps felt as one realises those words were more like a prophecy than words of encouragement, is just brilliant. We then see a montage of all four icons at the top of their fields – Minister Malcolm X preaching to the public, Muhammad Ali beating an opponent in the ring, Jim Brown running on a football pitch and Sam Cooke singing on stage.
They all come together in a hotel room in Miami, just the four of them, the night Muhammad Ali becomes the Heavyweight Champion of the World. The four have some light-hearted moments together as shown by another short video montage where they sing and dance in the room. But then the tone of the trailer changes as we see multiple black families pushed out of their homes with people throwing makeshift “oil grenades” at stores. These four talk about trying to use the power they have gained to change the world around them – by giving people a voice.
‘One Night in Miami’ is based on the play of the same name which was written by Kemp Powers, who also wrote the screenplay for this film. This film has a brillaint cast with Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Eli Goree as Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali, Aldis Hodge as Jim Brown and Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke. King’s film first premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year, which became the first film screened to have a Black woman director. Although the film has an average rating according to imdb, film critics around the world and Rotten Tomatoes are singing praises about the movie and Regina King.
Regina King’s ‘One Night in Miami’ will be released internationally on January 15th 2021 on Amazon Prime Video. Watch the trailer for this critically acclaimed feature down below: