You would think it would be straight forward to come up with a provocative movie set in the US when segregation was in vogue. Not so! Roger Friedman is a decendant of Sam Friedman and a film critic who wrote an interesting article criticising the many inaccuracies in this film.
So, the director and writers have an easy topic to critique history. They had a great man like Thurgood Marshall and some backward social attitudes that are as backward as our attitudes toward domestic violence today. Instead, the authors fill the movie with false facts and make Marshall look like an arrogant, unrefined twit (which he was neither). The directors and writers play the race card in all the wrong ways* and throw in a few sex jibes to top off a good dose of revisionism, undermining what could have been a great movie.
As others have said, Josh Gad was the better principal actor in this movie. Sterling Brown as the accused was far more nuanced and capable than Chadwick Boseman as Marshall. Boseman is charming, but a totally wrong fit.
I still give it a 6/10, which is very generous given the director and writers who totally failed to capture the essence of the story. The revisionist history and significant number of factual errors cast a large shadow over what could have been a great movie.
Is the truth not interesting enough? The real Marshall is an amazing man - far better than Boseman's insulting copy.
* Hollywood needs to curb its political correctness. I've banned my children from watching new movies until I screen them. That's how bad Hollywood has become. I know quite a few parents who feel the same way.
So, the director and writers have an easy topic to critique history. They had a great man like Thurgood Marshall and some backward social attitudes that are as backward as our attitudes toward domestic violence today. Instead, the authors fill the movie with false facts and make Marshall look like an arrogant, unrefined twit (which he was neither). The directors and writers play the race card in all the wrong ways* and throw in a few sex jibes to top off a good dose of revisionism, undermining what could have been a great movie.
As others have said, Josh Gad was the better principal actor in this movie. Sterling Brown as the accused was far more nuanced and capable than Chadwick Boseman as Marshall. Boseman is charming, but a totally wrong fit.
I still give it a 6/10, which is very generous given the director and writers who totally failed to capture the essence of the story. The revisionist history and significant number of factual errors cast a large shadow over what could have been a great movie.
Is the truth not interesting enough? The real Marshall is an amazing man - far better than Boseman's insulting copy.
* Hollywood needs to curb its political correctness. I've banned my children from watching new movies until I screen them. That's how bad Hollywood has become. I know quite a few parents who feel the same way.