‘Bob Marley: One Love’ review: Biopic is afraid to stir it up

I ponder if Reinaldo Marcus Inexperienced, director of Bob Marley: One Love, is aware of his movie has a perpetual sticker within the decrease proper nook of the display screen in Indian theatres. This can be a movie about Rastafari, so somebody’s at all times smoking ganja. And if somebody’s smoking in a movie that performs in India, there shall be a statutory warning plastered on display screen. Baffling censor interventions, horrible audiences, prohibitive pricing: India turns into a worse place to look at motion pictures with every passing 12 months. 

Inexperienced was most likely employed off the again of his Venus and Serena Williams movie, King Richard, which confirmed he may deal with a big-ticket biopic. But, there have been warning indicators in that 2021 movie that Inexperienced wasn’t prepared—or in a position—to push the Hollywood biopic out of its consolation zone. We see this in One Love, which lacks even the surface-level toughness of King Richard. The Bob Marley we’re launched to firstly is already a legend—the one suspense is whether or not he’ll ascend to the extent of messiah. 

By the mid-70s, Marley is the king of reggae music and a mass hero in a rustic weighed down by poverty and violence. With the island gearing up for a divisive election, he declares a peace live performance, however is distributed reeling after gunmen attempt to kill him. Marley decamps to England together with his entourage, the place he performs soccer, basks in his superstar, and searches for inspiration for a report that he hopes will change the face of music. 

We see the album take form. Marley hears a bandmate enjoying the principle theme to the Paul Newman movie Exodus. The phrase, with its Biblical implications, strikes one thing in him, and he gathers the band. He begins singing. The percussionist faucets on a conga, the guitarist lays down some bluesy licks. Strains arrive absolutely shaped. Quickly they’ve the primary draft of a basic, and a title for the report: Exodus. It’s an exquisite scene—one of many few the place Marley’s music is allowed to exist separate from his legend. 

There are musical connections to be made, however the movie doesn’t appear . In a single scene, Marley and his band watch, half-bemused, half-impressed, as The Conflict belt out ‘White Riot’. Would possibly their model of ‘Police and Thieves’, a canopy of a Jamaican hit, have been a extra considerate selection, pointing to the deep affect of reggae on the British music scene then? The movie opts for essentially the most boring non secular disaster—a gentle corruption of Marley’s soul, aided by music biz insiders, ultimately nipped within the bud by his exasperated spouse, Rita (Lashana Lynch). Each time Marley struggles or despairs, Inexperienced trots out the identical uninspired dream sequence: Bob as a toddler in entrance of a burning subject, a person on a horse looming close by.

Kingsley Ben-Adir is a candy, passive Marley. The British actor, who performed Malcolm X in One Night time in Miami and Barack Obama in The Comedy Rule, manages the thick, musical patois admirably (his grandparents have been from Trinidad & Tobago; Lynch, additionally British, is of Jamaican descent). However I discovered his efficiency missing driver, whereas Lynch takes her scenes by the scruff of the neck. There’s one second when he explodes into violence, and it appears pressured as a result of it’s at odds with every little thing we’ve seen earlier than.

The movie is shot by Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood), co-written by Terence Winter (The Sopranos) and produced by Dede Gardner and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Leisure. All the fitting folks, however the vibes are off. Now and again, a lady’s voice hums meaningfully on the soundtrack, a painfully Hollywood selection. I used to be reminded of the final famous-person biopic I appreciated, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, which broke freed from the tyranny of accents by not doing them in any respect. That movie had curiosity in its topic however little reverence. It’s the opposite approach round with One Love, which may stand to be much less respectful, and fewer afraid to stir it up.