One Night In Miami: Amazon Prime Video Film Review

Cast: Eli Goree, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Leslie Odom Jr, Aldis Hodge, Lance Reddick

Director: Regina King

Regina King's four guys shooting the breeze film just about manages to transcend its play roots to deliver a compelling and depressingly timely take on African-American culture in the world, despite being set in the 60s.

Based on Kemp Powers' own stage play, the film takes in a fictionalised meeting of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke in a Miami hotel room in February 1964.

Fresh off a victory over reigning heavyweight boxer Sonny Listen in February 1964, Cassius Clay (Goree) is heading to a Miami hotel at Kingsley Ben-Adir's Malcolm X's behest. Also along for the visit is Leslie Odom Jr's Sam Cooke and NFL star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge).

Each of them has something they're battling with and each of them has something to get off their chest - but One Night In Miami is not a confessional film in that traditional kind of manner.

The hook is that Cassius Clay is pondering a switch to the Muslim lifestyle - but what transpires as these four friends meet up is a series of simmering tensions and minor resentments bubbling up and threatening to boil over.

One Night In Miami doesn't really do much with its play origins - a few early boxing scenes set the stall out for Cassius Clay, and there is a truly memorably shocking scene involving a genial Beau Bridges, but other than that, this is just four men interacting and talking with each other.

But it's oddly compelling stuff that has a potency hidden in its wings - and as mentioned, depressingly culturally familiar. 

If anything, One Night in Miami is really a damning expose of how little American race relations have actually progressed as each reveals how they're faring in the shadow of the white man or under the yoke. 

Yet, not once is the film ever preachy, or King's relaying of the message overdone. Sure, it takes somewhere upwards of 50 minutes to really unleash its potency and a degree of righteous indignation, but when it does, the power is truly there on show for all to see, thanks largely due to Ben-Adir's restrained but emotive performance.

There may be philosophies at stake here, and differing viewpoints that generally don't deviate from what's expected, but what King weaves together thanks to some well-reasoned and well-set out ideological clashes makes One Night In Miami something deeply thoughtful and deeply engrossing.

One Night In Miami begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video on January 15th.