As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn

Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her 24th guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome as always, Lafronda!

HER REVIEW: One Night in Miami

Regina King has been one of the most reliable actresses working today. King started off as a sitcom child star (227, What’s Happening Now), film actress (Poetic Justice, Jerry Maguire), acclaimed actress (If Beale Street Could Talk, Watchmen) and now King is making her feature directorial debut with the new film One Night in Miami. The film tells a story that takes place in 1964.

The film details the friendship of four famous Black men, Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge). Get together one night in Miami (hence the title) to talk and discuss the current issues about the civil rights movement during that time.

Clay has just won the heavyweight championship of world, beating Sonny Liston. Malcolm X has a major falling out with the National Islam leader Elijah Muhammed over personal character issues. Jim Brown has a very successful career as a player for the Cleveland Browns, but is contemplating leaving football for a fledgling film career.

These four have been very successful in their prospective careers. Malcolm X, in particular, stresses that Black men need to focus on the racial justice of equality and speaking out on the issues needed for the Black community to seek respect and demand retribution.

In addition, many scenes that are effective are when Malcolm X and Cooke discuss Cooke’s reluctance to embrace the civil rights movement. Cooke and Malcolm X also discuss Cooke owning his music. Bob Dylan covered a song of Cooke’s and Dylan getting money for a song that should’ve given the song to a Black person.

Malcolm X and Clay, early in the film, pray together as Clay contemplates being a publicly practicing Muslim like Malcolm. Jim Brown and Malcom discuss colorism and Brown asks Malcolm because of his lighter skin tone, if Malcom has to prove his “blackness.”

Also, it adapts the script by Kemp Powers, from his play by the same name. Kemp and King do an outstanding job with dialogue stretches between the four characters. The scenes don’t drag on and there are enough scenes with the four leads dealing with various issues of reckoning. The work of King’s editor is impressive to make the intimate scenes of the four men feel real and resonating with current audiences.

Eli Goree gives a performance that surpasses Will Smith’s portrayal of Muhammad Ali in Ali. Goree has a brash bravado that commands your attention and stays with you over the course of the film. Aldis Hodge as Brown is the mediator who tries to be fair to see both sides of Malcolm X and Cooke’s arguments. Black people should make their voices heard in this world, especially when the chips were down and stacked against the community back then, much as they often still are here in 2021.

RATING: 1/2***

CONCLUSION

Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!