Over the weekend, the 53rd annual New York Film Festival came to a close with the World Premiere screening of Don Cheadle’s long brewing passion project Miles Ahead. This biopic of jazz musician Miles Davis has been in the works forever (with Cheadle as the star, co-writer, and director), so expectations were quite high for this one, which NYFF debuted as their 2015 Closing Night selection. A potential Academy Award player, either this year or next (more on that below), this was one of the bigger debuts in a while. Is it an Oscar contender or a pretender? Something in between, perhaps? Well, why don’t we find out below right now?
Here’s a quick primer on the film itself, which of course is a look at a moment in time for legend Miles Davis. Cheadle plays Davis mostly during a period in which he had receded from public life and wasn’t creating music. There’s flashes back to his more productive days and his time with love and muse Francis Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi), but most of the movie is spent with Davis as he stays home, bemoaning what he’s lost. There’s also time spent with journalist Dave Brill (Ewan McGregor), who attempts to get him out of his funk. In addition to Cheadle, Corinealdi, and McGregor, the cast includes Keith Stanfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, and more. Cheadle obviously co-writes and directs, in addition to starring, so it goes without saying that this was a passion project for him.
I didn’t find the flick to be fully successful, but Miles Ahead has a few things definitely going for it, mostly in regard to Cheadle. While I thought the screenplay he wrote with Steven Baigelman, Stephen J. Rivele, and Christopher Wilkinson was all over the place and the weakest link in the chain by far (their decision to involve a car chase and shootout just didn’t work for me), his acting and direction are far better. It’s one of his best performances, while his choices behind the camera impressed me. This is a flawed work, but Cheadle is going to make a great film one day. He’s employed strong cinematography from Roberto Schaefer, solid music from Robert Glasper and Herbie Hancock (besides what Davis contributes or Cheadle does himself), and especially the creative editing on the part of John Axelrad and Kayla Emter. They both help Cheadle to come up with some inventive ways to incorporate [...]
↧