I’ve always wondered why no one ever tried to make a Bob Marley biopic for all these years. Plus there’s the fact that there haven’t been a lot of great musical biopics. Well, this year we finally have a biographical musical drama based on the life of the great Bob Marley. Handling a feature about such an influential figure is no easy job, but this responsibility was given to Reinaldo Marcus Green who directs a screenplay he co-wrote with Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, and Zach Baylin. Kingsley Ben-Adir is playing the Jamaican icon.
It was always surprising that Paramount didn’t premiere this movie at any film festival last year. Its February release date (which was January before) also raised concerns as it is usually an indicator that the movie is not very strong. There have been some great movies released in January and February over the years, but not too many. Unfortunately, Bob Marley falls into the not-great category. It fell way short of my expectations, to say the least.
But I want to start with the positives. The movie opens with a beautiful flashback shot of Bob as a kid with fire in the background. This shot gives you a glimpse of the quality of this movie’s cinematography. We get a lot of gorgeous shots that beautifully capture the Jamaican culture. The costumes and the make-up were also spot on. When I saw Kinglsey Ben-Adir on screen, I didn’t see him I saw Bob Marley. All credit for this goes to his performance as our titular character.
Ben-Adir gave his all to the role and made sure to get all the mannerisms of Marley right. He also does the Jamaican accent really well throughout the runtime. Some of the others’ accents were not as convincing, especially in the second half, but his accent mostly hit the bullseye. The supporting characters get little to no help from the script to shine. Lashana Lynch, who plays his wife, Rita, does have one or two strong moments but doesn’t really get to shine.
The writing is probably where the film is at its weakest. The script focuses too much on one part of his life and basically ignores most of the parts of his journey, especially the part of his rise to fame. The narrative also chooses not to dive too much into his style of music and what made it special. The screenplay could have been much more impactful if it had more scope to make the final product more musically rich.
The back-and-forth narrative choice of frequently going back to his early days works for the most part, but the love story part could have been more flashed out. It also barely skims the surface of his relationship with The Wailing Wailers. The Editing is quite strong and the pacing for the most part is consistent, but somehow the end feels lackluster and quite abrupt. Just when you think the movie is about to really elevate and go out with a bang, it ends.
Bob Marley: One Love misses the beat too often and eventually falls flat. Kinsley Ben-Adir is magnificent and gives his best but can’t save this unfocused biopic. The makers tried to do something different from other biographical dramas and does say a lot about Jamaican culture and music, but it’s a shame that this product turned out to be so underwhelming, especially given the talent involved. The worst part is that it doesn’t even try hard enough to be something special, and naturally ends up being quite an ordinary product. Ben-Adir deserves better.
Bob Marley: One Love hits cinemas on February 14.
