Here’s how they inform One Night in Miami.
One Night in Miami Trailer
Here is the trailer that gives you an idea of the film’s unique approach… One Night in Miami is a breakout role for Ben-Adir who is a revelation as Malcolm X. He’s previously enjoyed small roles in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, The Commuter, and Noelle. On Showtime’s The Comey Rule, he played President Barack Obama. Eli Goree – Goree plays Cassius Clay on the last night he would go by that name. The film pivots on the evening Clay shocked the world when he defeated Sonny Liston by TKO in February 1964. Only age 22, Clay became the youngest heavyweight champ to claim the belt by knockout (a record Ali still holds). The day after the victory, Clay would announce he’s joined the Nation of Islam (at Malcolm X’s urging) and would go by the name of Cassius X (later changed to Muhammad Ali). He would also soon become a figure of controversy when he refused to be drafted in the Vietnam War due to being a conscientious objector. The resulting harassment by the U.S. government would see Ali banned from the ring for four years. One Night in Miami is a breakout role for Goree, whose few other film credits include an unnamed character in 2014’s Godzilla. He’s previously had recurring roles on Ballers and Riverdale, and appeared in GLOW. Leslie Odom Jr. – Odom portrays Sam Cooke, the pioneering singer, songwriter, composer, producer, and entrepreneur who became one of the first Black musicians to found his own record label and publishing company. Also known as the King of Soul, Cooke contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye (among others), and recorded a string of mid-20th century hits that include “You Send Me,” “Cupid,” “Chain Gang,” and “Bring It On Home to Me.” One Night in Miami is set, significantly, before Cooke recorded his first song demanding political change, “A Change is Going to Come” … and before Cooke was shot to death by a motel manager later that same year. Odom is best known for playing the morally ambiguous Aaron Burr in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical, and pop culture sensation, Hamilton. He won a Tony and Grammy for his portrayal. He’s appeared in a variety of Broadway productions, including Rent, Dreamgirls, and Leap of Faith. On screen, his credits include Harriet, Red Tails, and Murder on the Orient Express. He’s also released four solo albums. Prior to depicting Brown, Hodge might be best known for playing MC Ren in Straight Outta Compton. He also memorably appeared in a supporting role in The Invisible Man last year. Other credits include Hidden Figures, Clemency, and al lead role on City on a Hill.
One Night in Miami Release Date
One Night in Miami Story
The film is loosely inspired by real events. On the night Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston, Malcolm X was sitting ringside. Afterward Clay agreed to meet Ali at the Hampton House, a motel that Black celebrities frequented at the time in Miami’s Brownsville neighborhood. The two were later met by Sam Cooke and Jim Brown. However, Kemp Powers as first a playwright and then a screenwriter, took literary license to imagine what that evening was like before Cassius Clay announced the next morning he was now Cassius X. Regarding the appeal of the project, director Regina King recently told The New York Times, “We don’t get the opportunity to see [on screen] our men, Black men, shown the way we see them so often in our family members and friends. Like every other human being they’re layered. They are vulnerable, they are strong, they are providers, they are sometimes putting on a mask. They are not unbreakable. They are flawed. They are beautiful. And just Kemp captured all of that in, you know, less than 110 pages…. I told him I felt like you’ve written a love letter to Black men.” The official synopsis reads: “One Night in Miami is a fictional account of one incredible night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered discussing their roles in the civil rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 60s.” You can again read the full review here. In this context, Ben-Adir’s Brother Malcolm may be the most revelatory. In contrast with Spike Lee and Denzel Washington’s electric depiction of the civil and human rights activist, there is something slightly subversive about King and Ben-Adir’s interpretation. Here is the firebrand who preached African American separation and just several months before the film’s February ’64 setting referred to JFK’s assassination as “chickens coming home to roost”—a statement that gets him no shortage of grief from his friends in One Night in Miami—yet beyond his moral disgust at Elijah Muhammad’s affairs with young secretaries in the NOI, this version of Malcolm is full of second-guessing anxiety and a pained inner-life just bubbling behind the horn-rimmed glasses.
