Marshall (2017)

In Select Theaters Friday, October, 13th

Cast: Chadwick Bozeman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Sterling K. Brown, Dan Stevens, James Cromwell, Keesha Sharp, and Jussie Smollett

Director: Reginald Hudlin

Synopsis: Young Thurgood Marshall faces one of his greatest challenges while working as a lawyer for the NAACP. Marshall travels to conservative Connecticut when wealthy socialite Eleanor Strubing accuses black chauffeur Joseph Spell of sexual assault and attempted murder. He soon teams up with Sam Friedman, a local Jewish lawyer who’s never handled a criminal case. Together, the two men build a defense while contending with racist and anti-Semitic views from those who deem Spell to be guilty.

Review:

Every Brooklynite needs to know of the outstanding work of the late Justice Thurgood Marshall. Writer, director and producer Reginald Hudlin, one of the celebrated Hudlin Brothers, brilliantly delivers a story of hope, faith, strength, and love based on a specific time in Marshall’s life.

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Hudlin doesn’t tell Marshall story from his birth on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland to his death some eight-five years later. He focuses on one of Marshall’s court cases. As the sole attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Marshall is sent to Connecticut to represent Joseph Spell. Spell, a chauffeur for a wealthy white couple, is charged with raping wife, Eleanor Strubing. Spell, if convicted, would spend the rest of his life in prison.

Though Chadwick Bozeman does not physically resemble the young Marshall, he does a superb job of capturing his wit, brilliance, sensitivity, and boldness. Josh Gad, who plays Sam Friedman, a local Jewish lawyer who had never handled a criminal case works as Marshall’s “student” on the Spell case. He is both nerdy and powerful as a supporting actor.

The time is right for this movie. Census data reveal a wide racial disproportion of the number all individuals incarcerated in the United States. The movie Marshall tells us that the mission of the NAACP was to represent accused individuals arrested solely because of race. And Thurgood was sent from place to place doing just that. And he won just about every case.

The recently aired Kalief Browder story, showed how the plea deal is brazenly used time and time again to keep the innocent Black male locked up for years. Browder spent three years in corrupt Rikers Island jail awaiting trial — two of those years in solitary confinement — for allegedly stealing a backpack. In Marshall, Sterling K. Brown is compelling as Spell who considers taking a 20 year deal, for a crime he didn’t commit. Life has taught him that justice is not blind in America.

Throughout the movie, Marshall’s life is nicely woven into the storyline of the Spell case. We see Marshall socializing with the creative elite – Langton Hughes and Zora Neal’s Hurston. We hear him reminisce about his grandfather who was a slave. We learn that after graduating from Lincoln with honors in 1930, Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law School and was rejected because of his race. He ultimately attends the historically black Howard University. There he becomes the protege of civil rights lawyer Charles Houston, dean of Howard’s Law School.

Marshall is a must see. You will cry and get angry but most of all be filled with hope. Sing along with Andra Day, featuring Common, as she masterfully sings Stand Up for Something. Then as the movie comes to a close watch as Marshall prepares for his next case. He walks and talks to family members played by Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton. As the parents of Trayvon Martin, they add meaning to the movie’s music, “it don’t mean nothing if you don’t stand up for something.” It’s been five years since their son was murdered in Florida and they continue to fight for justice.