Obviously a labour of love for Oscar-winning actress Regina King, "One Night in Miami" is her film version of Kemp Powers' play about a night in which Malcom X, Mohammed Ali, (or Cassius Clay as he was back then), Sam Cooke and Jim Brown got together in a Miami hotel room discussing their lives as well as the struggle for civil rights. It's fiction, of course, and could have been painfully theatrical but King opens it up beautifully and draws superb performances from the whole cast with Leslie Odom Jr's Sam Cooke, (surely the Oscar is his to lose) and Aldis Hodge's Jim Brown the stand-outs.
Indeed it's very much an actor's piece and if the ground covered has already been covered elsewhere, this is material well worth repeating and as a piece of history that might have happened but didn't it provides much to ponder over. It's also hugely entertaining, funny and whip-smart, and by the time we get around to Cooke's rendition of "A Change is Gonna Come" there won't be a dry eye in the house.
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