Regina King’s Directing Debut Electrifies

In 1964, black icons Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown met one evening in a Florida motel room. This true historical anecdote inspired a 2013 play by Kemp Powers, “A Night in Miami,” and now actor Regina King is making her directorial debut with a confident and electrifying film adaptation.

It’s a first-rate ensemble production, with its four masterpieces taking on defining moments at various points in time as the characters reflect on the state of the civil rights movement, power, and a sense of their own fame. , and what the future might hold for them. country.

The opportunity? Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) – who will soon change his name to Muhammad Ali – is in Miami to fight Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight Championship title, a match the charismatic 22-year-old Clay is expected to lose. His friend Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is there for moral support and, it turns out, religious: Clay is considering converting to Islam. Soul singer Sam Cooke (“Hamilton” alum Leslie Odom Jr.) is in town after a disastrous concert at Manhattan’s Copacabana club, where an almost all-white crowd gave him an openly hostile reception. Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) is also here for the fashionable bout – but not before making a social call, en route, to a family friend (Beau Bridges) who ends their conversation friendly on the porch with a bit of racism.

It’s in the power of this last exchange, at the start of the film, that you begin to sense King’s deep feeling for this project, the way she adapts and expands the room while still maintaining the strength of her dialogue, which stealthily lets go. emotional bombs. As a performer, we know she’s capable of similar feats of dramatic brilliance, and it’s exciting to see her pass that mastery on the other side of the camera.

After Clay wins the fight, the friends gather for what Clay and party-loving Cooke think is a night of celebration. But Malcolm X has other ideas. Ben-Adir’s Malcolm X is full of humanity and melancholy alongside such unwavering seriousness that the other three can’t help but tease him about it. The minister and activist wants to use and unify their respective positions as black cultural superstars for the benefit of his own civil rights movement. But unbeknownst to the group, he and his wife simultaneously plan their departure from the Nation of Islam, and a shaken Malcolm searches over his shoulder for men who might follow him.

King’s management excels at fleshing out these men beyond their best known qualities (although those are there too, especially in Goree’s charming and mischievous selfishness in his portrayal of Clay). She gives each actor their moment to shine – or, in Odom’s case, a handful of them, including a flashback to a stunning a cappella rendition of her song “Chain Gang” at a concert in Boston. . It’s loaded and enigmatic, bristling with Malcolm X’s suggestion that it’s sold out. Hodge’s Brown keeps its low-key but intense swagger, sometimes dazzling with an “I’m motherf-parent” Jim Brown! “But it’s Ben-Adir who anchors this film. His portrayal of Malcolm X, the year before the man’s assassination, is imbued with sincere emotion and an unwavering determination to end the persecution of black citizens in the country.

Right now, King’s directorial debut is coming like a thunderclap.