One Night in Miami – Review
“It is time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country.” –Malcolm X, February 19, 1965
One Night in Miami is a dramatized representation of the wild night of Feb. 25, 1964, in Miami. In an upset victory, Cassius Clay won the heavyweight boxing title. In the hours that follow that upset boxing victory, Clay joins Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, and Malcolm X as they discuss the responsibility of being successful black men during the Civil Rights Movement and cultural upheaval of the 1960s.
In real life, Clay, Malcolm X, Cooke, and Brown really were friends, and they did spend the night of February 25, 1964, together in Miami. This love letter to these four Black men shows the impact of how these men’s expressions during the civil rights movement had a lasting effect, with the confrontation between Sam Cooke and Malcolm X being the crux of the plot.
From the opening to the end credits, this film had me enamored. The chemistry between the four actors—Leslie Odom Jr. (Cooke), Kingsley Ben-Adir (Malcolm X), Aldis Hodge (Brown), and Eli Goree (Clay)—was magical. Odom Jr. has the same soulful quality in his voice that Cooke. He was impeccable in the role. The pacing and storytelling of the film were so smooth that at one point I forgot I was watching a movie, and it felt like I was watching what was happening between these men in real-time.
One Night in Miami is based on Kemp Powers’ 2013 play of the same name. Powers—who was also the writer-director of Pixar’s Soul—described his play in a 2013 essay, as being about, “one night, four friends, and the many pivotal decisions that can happen in a single revelatory evening.” The exchange was compelling enough to show their humanity.
In One Night in Miami, after Clay’s boxing victory upset, he joins Brown, Malcolm X, and Cooke, at the Hampton House Motel for a post-fight gathering and discourse. The four emerge from their night of conversation renewed and ready to take the next step in the fight toward racial equality.
For Clay, the next morning he announced he was a convert to the anti-integrationist Nation of Islam. Not long after, he adopted his new name: Muhammed Ali. For Cooke, this translated to writing and recording the unforgettable sanguine “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
One Night In Miami
One Night in Miami – The Timeline
Because the film is a dramatized representation, many of the events in the film did not happen on the same timeline as they did in real life. Cooke recorded his Bob Dylan–inspired song before the night of the famous Clay fight. The film also likely exaggerates the significance of the discussions in the Hampton House Motel room that night of February 25. However, the general picture the film paints that the four men had on the impact of popular culture is solid.
LESLIE ODOM JR. stars in ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI. Photo: Patti Perret. Courtesy of Amazon Studios
These 4 men expressed themselves at a time when the civil rights movement was at a boiling point, though each in their own way.
Cooke’s narrative is closely tied to his song “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and he was not nearly as public about how he was evoking change. Cooke was working to encourage other artists and songwriters and supporting the reach of others through his own record company, which created more spaces for Black voices. Cooke was less protesting and more about leading the way to create opportunities for other people.
Themes that Parallel Today
In many ways, we haven’t come very far as a nation since the night of this famous conversation in 1964.
Two months before Malcolm was murdered, Cooke, then 33, was shot in an altercation with a Los Angeles motel manager in December 1964. The court ruled that his murder was a justifiable homicide, despite the questions surrounding the incident. You can’t help but see the parallel with so much of what we are still endeavoring with today as a country. How could this not resonate with Odom Jr. in his writing performing in One Night in Miami
Malcolm, 39, was assassinated speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, in February 1965. Details of what happened that day still remain the subject of debate, though 3 members of the Nation of Islam (NOI) were convicted of his murder in 1966.
About One Night In Miami
Based on a play by Kemp Powers, One Night In Miami the movie is set on a historic night in 1964 when Cassius Clay celebrated winning the world heavyweight boxing champion title with three of his closest friends: singer Sam Cooke, activist Malcolm X, and football star Jim Brown. The drama, which was nominated for an Olivier Award in 2017 for best play by Kemp Powers, is now a feature film directed by Regina King. The movie reimagines the true story of what happens the night the four men celebrated Clay’s victory before he became known as Muhammad Ali.
Jana Seitzer is a writer, traveler, podcaster, and geek. Although well-versed in many fictional universes, Star Wars & Marvel have always been her favorites.
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