It seems that when you need someone to play a black icon these days, you call Chadwick Boseman. And I'm perfectly fine with that. He's as magnetic as usual in Marshall, where he plays the first African-American U.S. Supreme Justice working an early landmark case for the NAACP. Among the impediments he suffers is being forced to try the case by proxy, through an initially underqualified lawyer played by Josh Gad. They make a strong team, and the real-life conceit adds some tension and humor to what is nevertheless a pretty straightforward courtroom drama, well made, but old hat. It is somewhat unfortunate that the case may hinge on a false rape accusation, as politically-charged a topic as the wrongfully-accused black man concept. Similarly, some will chafe at the black lead being muzzled in favor of his white co-council. But generally, the film doesn't let the facts of the story sink the attempt, but rather finds ways to keep things properly dramatic and thematically consistent.
It starts off by-the-numbers and frankly pretty bland, but what Marshall grows to be throughout the second and third acts is a thoroughly well-acted courtroom drama.
If you see it as that instead of a biopic about Thurgood Marshall, you'll get more out of it. Plus the Oscar-nominated end credits song ties in quite well to the script's message.
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Siskoid
It seems that when you need someone to play a black icon these days, you call Chadwick Boseman. And I'm perfectly fine with that. He's as magnetic as usual in Marshall, where he plays the first African-American U.S. Supreme Justice working an early landmark case for the NAACP. Among the impediments he suffers is being forced to try the case by proxy, through an initially underqualified lawyer played by Josh Gad. They make a strong team, and the real-life conceit adds some tension and humor to what is nevertheless a pretty straightforward courtroom drama, well made, but old hat. It is somewhat unfortunate that the case may hinge on a false rape accusation, as politically-charged a topic as the wrongfully-accused black man concept. Similarly, some will chafe at the black lead being muzzled in favor of his white co-council. But generally, the film doesn't let the facts of the story sink the attempt, but rather finds ways to keep things properly dramatic and thematically consistent.ntan
It starts off by-the-numbers and frankly pretty bland, but what Marshall grows to be throughout the second and third acts is a thoroughly well-acted courtroom drama.If you see it as that instead of a biopic about Thurgood Marshall, you'll get more out of it. Plus the Oscar-nominated end credits song ties in quite well to the script's message.
3.5/5