Kingsley Ben-Adir's best movie also saw him play a real-life icon

one night in miami
Kingsley Ben-Adir's best movie is on Prime VideoAmazon Studios
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Kingsley Ben-Adir is wowing critics and audiences alike with his portrayal of music legend Bob Marley in the new biopic Bob Marley: One Love, which set a new record as it beat Madame Web in its opening weekend at the box office.

While his performance is excellent, the movie is less successful in other elements, but there is another movie based on real life which remains Kingsley Ben-Adir's best movie: One Night in Miami.

(Yes, we know Barbie is excellent too, but Ben-Adir's role as Basketball Ken is relatively minor in the grand scheme of the movie.)

One Night in Miami – which you can watch right now on Prime Video – marked the directorial debut of Regina King. It sees Ben-Adir play another real-life icon, Malcolm X, in a story that seems too unbelievable to be true. But true it is.

one night in miami
Amazon Studios

Watch One Night in Miami on Prime Video

After underdog Cassius Clay, soon to be called Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), defeats heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, he celebrates the event with three of his friends: Malcolm X, Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge).

What follows is a fictional account inspired by the historic night these formidable figures spent together, examining the struggles they faced and the vital role they played in the civil rights movement.

With such a heavy weight on its shoulders (see what we did there?), King's adaptation would need to not only succeed at telling the literal story of these four men but also break out of the constraints of the play upon which it's based. Like Netflix's adaptation of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, One Night in Miami takes place ostensibly in one room.

King is clever enough not to let this constrain her too much (it helps that playwright Kemp Powers adapted it for King), and though we mostly experience the four main characters in this one night, we're also taken on preludes, flashbacks and brief journeys from the hotel room, which makes returning to it much like re-entering a boxing ring.

one night in miami
Patti Perret

That these four men were friends is an oversimplification – they were foils for each other, for the good, the bad and everything in between. They challenged each other and in doing so, challenge the audience to examine what it means to be righteous in the face of injustice.

The fact that its cast is superb is what stops One Night in Miami from feeling didactic. It is emblematic of the adage 'more than the sum of its parts', not because one would expect that on their own each character would be flat or boring, but rather because once they all come together the movie takes on another life, as if the foursome is another character altogether.

As each man tries to tease something out about the other, the audience is in the lucky position of being able to go on this journey with them. It is a true fly-on-the-wall viewing experience that makes its end, and each man's emotional arc, that much more poignant.

For anyone who has struggled with identity and responsibility, particularly within a marginalised group, it will strike at the heart of that internal debate – how does one be a good person, a responsible person, to their fellows? What does that even mean?

aldis hodge and leslie odom jr star in one night in miamiphoto patti perretcourtesy of amazon studios
Patti Perret - Amazon Prime

Each man has a different answer to this question, and throughout the film the viewer can't help but side with each as they explain why they've chosen the path they're on. But the movie never tells you who is right; a smart move, and the only one that perhaps makes sense given the complexity of the questions it's asking.

Instead, it lets the real people's lives – Ali, Cooke, Brown and Malcolm X – speak for themselves. And by doing so it allows us to have our own answers, too, for ourselves.

One Night in Miami may have a slow-ish start, but from the first gut punch (you'll know it when it happens) it never lets up. It is a must-watch – not only because it is Important with a capital I, but because it is a superbly acted and beautifully written story whose full emotional resonance settles in and stays, long after the credits roll.

One Night in Miami is available to watch now on Prime Video.


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