Chadwick Boseman (Open Road Films)
Rather than a cradle-to-the-grave biopic approach, House Party director Reginald Hudlin’s new movie about America’s first black Supreme Court Justice focuses on one specific case in Thurgood Marshall’s early legal career. It’s a smart creative decision to confine the narrative instead of overstuffing it with a Wikipedia’s worth of bullet points. But Marshall, an otherwise entertaining courtroom drama, fails to honor the legend, reducing him to a supporting role in his own story.
Written by Connecticut attorney Michael Koskoff and his screenwriter son Jacob, the film chronicles the 1940 trial of Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), a Bridgeport, Conencticut man accused of rape and attempted murder by his employer Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson).
At first, the premise makes a fine vehicle in which to explore Marshall before the historic touchstones of his legacy have come to pass, an opportunity to see the man in his element and watch him grow into an icon. Professional Biopic Star Chadwick Boseman breathes charisma and gravitas into the part the same way he did with Jackie Robinson in 42 and James Brown in Get on Up, only here it’s blended with the superhero wattage of his performance as Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War. The stage is perfectly set for a powerhouse display of legal prowess from one of the most famous black litigators in history.
Enter Josh Gad. Josh Gad isn’t a particularly untalented actor, and he doesn’t seem like a bad person. He’s an adequate performer for a rom-com or the occasional Disney fairy tale musical.
But in a movie called Marshall, about Thurgood Marshall, starring one of the best black actors working in Hollywood, a cloying Josh Gad character arc might be the last thing you’d want to see.
Gad plays insurance attorney Sam Friedman, initially involved only to get Marshall onto the case, as he’s not a member of the Connecticut bar. But on the first day of the trial, a stereotypically racist judge played by James Cromwell denies the application, disallowing Marshall from so much as speaking in his courtroom. Friedman has to try the case himself, with Marshall playing silent puppet master.
It’s clear the script thinks this union, based on a real story, is a prime symbol for a tale about the importance of alliances and galvanizing well-meaning non-black liberals to go the extra mile for the sake of helping others. Friedman, a Jewish man whose wife’s cousins were victims of the Holocaust, grows from a man who wants nothing to do with the case for fear of it damaging his firm’s business to an impassioned civil rights activist.
For a few scenes, it works! Once Friedman shares the frame with Marshall, it doesn’t take long for other white characters to start casually calling him a k*ke and reminding him he doesn’t belong, artfully skewering the self-serving myth of Northern progressiveness.
Wait a minute. The movie isn’t called Friedman. Unfortunately, this movie sold as a Thurgood Marshall biopic regularly sidesteps its legendary subject in favor of a temporary law partner.
At one point, Marshall gets a phone call from his wife during the trial and gets awful news about her health, only to get lectured by Friedman about stirring up racial fervor and not being affected by the consequences. The movie glosses over Marshall’s wife having a miscarriage in order to make you feel bad that people are being mean to a white lawyer for representing a black man.
Anyone expecting a substantive picture about Marshall is just going to have to lower their expectations and sit through a film that, at its best, feels a little like Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, with its pulp approach to the material, jazzy score and stylized Newton Thomas Siegel cinematography. At its worst, this is basically Hitch, but instead of Will Smith teaching Kevin James how to get down, It’s Chadwick Boseman teaching Josh Gad how to try a criminal case.
In other words, it’s the exact opposite of what anyone might conceivably expect from a respectful biopic. That’s no way to pay homage to the Supreme Court Justice.
Directed by Reginald Hudlin
Written by Jacob Koskoff & Michael Koskoff
Starring Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, Sterling K. Brown, and James Cromwell
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, sexuality, violence and some strong language
118 minutes
Opens today at area theaters.
