The Chicago 7 trial Review: An image from the film. (courtesy Youtube)
Discard: Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Rylance and Frank Langella
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Evaluation: 4 stars (out of 5)
Designed nearly a decade before Donald Trump arrived at the White House, The Chicago 7 trial takes place in a specific time, place and political context. The film should therefore be assessed above all on factual accuracy and thematic acuity. Once that is no longer the case, the eternal resonance of history kicks in. It is unmistakable and urgent. The Chicago 7 trial, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, reproduces a particularly dark spectacle in which, just as much as the titular group of anti-war protesters brought to justice by the US government for being an example, the entire nation was on trial.
Aaron Sorkin’s standout screenplay polishes the factual details to sharpen the courtroom drama that swept through America in the late 1960s. Neither the essence nor the purpose of the narrative diminishes a bit in the market. Sorkin’s handwriting is sparkling. His directing skills are a notch or two below, but good enough that he doesn’t let the script lose its innate weight.
The film’s emphasis on an act of political resistance at a time when the power of the state – concentrated in its executive apparatus, police and judiciary – was unleashed indecently and arrogantly has a universal sound. The ugly results of suppressing dissent are as close to the bone today as they were when the United States turned from Lyndon B. Johnson to Richard Nixon.
Fifty years later, the crisis has only worsened. The world has been almost invaded by megalomaniacs who know no better than to deceive property, reduce honesty and, as a ploy to deflect blame for their abject failures, do everything to intimidate those who stand against it. systemic injustice and abuse of power.
While the burden of the ever-relevant message easily rests on the film, which makes The Chicago 7 trial an ensemble of songs is particularly phenomenal. The film hits the ground running, delving into the essence of the drama and featuring the “Chicago Seven” in quick succession as they prepare for a planned anti-war protest rally. The focus then is on the Battle of the Courtroom and its gripping repercussions.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (as National Chairman of the Black Panther Party Bobby Seale, the eighth accused who is separated from the trial but not before he is subjected to unspeakable indignities), Sacha Baron Cohen (as the founder of the Yippies, Abbie Hoffman, irreverently irreverent), Eddie Redmayne (as the leader of the Smoldering Students for a Democratic Society Tom Hayden, who, with the help of a diligent associate, counts the American soldiers who die in Vietnam), Joseph Gordon -Levitt (as federal prosecutor Richard Schultz), Mark Rylance (as defense attorney William Kunstler) and Frank Langella (as judge Julius Hoffman) deliver electrifying performances.
In fact, in The Chicago 7 trial, every actor has a chance to shine, including Michael Keaton, who only has two scenes playing LBJ’s attorney general Ramsey Clark. Faced with questions from federal prosecutor Gordon-Levitt, Keaton’s ex-GA opts for hard-hitting and pregnant pauses that temporarily but significantly change the pace of the war of words in court.
The writing, as we have already pointed out, is sparkling. Sorkin started working on the script in 2007. No wonder the script is so finely balanced, so perfect, so filled with revealing minutiae. The inevitable chaos of the 1968 riots is captured in scenes (these are scattered throughout the film) leading to a violent confrontation between Chicago police and anti-Vietnam War protesters at a Democratic national convention.
But none of the chaos that erupted around the room at the end of August 1968 is fully reflected in the rat-a-rat conversations between the main players or their heated exchanges with Schultz and Judge Hoffman. The men accused of crossing state borders and stirring up trouble are well aware that they are fighting a losing battle, but they still have their minds on them. Even in the face of serious provocation, they’re perfectly ready when they verbalize their core ideas – either to each other (as Hoffman and Hayden do animatedly more than once) or to the federal prosecutor and judge. .
We end up with the nagging feeling that a little more rebelliousness in the words that come out of the mouths of the defendants as they face a judge brazenly predisposed against them and a steadfast defense lawyer determined to stick with it. in his memory could have better captured the alarm, the indignation and the disdain of the men on the dock.
The actors, of course, convey it all with amazing aplomb, but the lines they deliver are sometimes bookish. Come to think of it, this makes the performance even more commendable. It takes time for actors to give the impression that the dialogues they deliver are spontaneous utterances rather than lines drawn from years of writing by an experienced screenwriter. The Chicago 7 trial retains the art while it, thanks to the astonishing spontaneity of the actors, exudes an air of sustained freedom of mind.
The vigor and intensity Cohen, Redmayne, Jeremy Strong (playing Youth International Party co-founder Jerry Rubin), Rylance and Gordon-Levitt pump into theaters and ever-so-light breaks to breathe as they take wonders of work and inject credibility into key confrontations and discussions.
Counterculture activists dragged to Judge Hoffman are unlucky. “The whole world is watching”: it’s a refrain that runs through the film. But do men in positions of power really care about the niceties? They obviously don’t. In recalling this point, The Trial of the Chicago 7 does a great job of highlighting how democracy is in constant danger of being manipulated and mutilated to crush dissent, especially when power falls into the wrong hands.
Aaron Sorkin transforms his vibrant vision of a 1969 legal battle that spanned seven months – one of the most infamous trials in American judicial history – into a commentary that transcends his specific context and speaks to all of us, to across decades and geographies. From beginning to end, The Chicago 7 trial is a triumph.
(The Chicago 7 trial broadcast on Netflix from October 16)
