Marshall

Should I Go or Just Say No

Marshall - PG-13

My rating: 2 1/2 stars

This one is a bit of a difficult one, on one hand there are some wonderful pieces to this and on the other there is just not enough.  Marshall is like Shakespeare for Dummies in that you get some great characters but the story is watered down.  That’s what makes this one so tough for me, the acting is really top notch but the meat and depth of the story being told did not match.

Marshall is a movie about Thurgood Marshall, a central figure in the civil rights movement and a lawyer of prominence whom changed history in the courtroom.  That being said, the movie chose to focus on one of his lesser know cases, and that is where it started to fall apart for me.  Marshall feels the whole time like it is setting up something bigger but never completely gets there.

This movie stars Chadwick Boseman (Best know for 42 and Captain America: Civil War) as Thurgood Marshall, Josh Gad (Best know for Beauty and the Beast 2017 and Pixels) as Sam Friedman who is the co-council for the case involved, Kate Hudson (Best know for Almost Famous, Glee, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) as Eleanor Strubing the plaintiff, Dan Stevens (Best know for Beauty and the Beast 2017 and Downton Abby ) as Loren Willis the racist prosecutor, and James Cromwell (Best known for I Robot, the Green Mile, Space Cowboys, and LA Confidential) as Judge Foster the Judge….duh.

Boseman and Gad really almost have a magical chemistry in this movie that is filtered through their own personal realities and Gad does have character arc and growth.  I would say that they are the main redeeming factors for Marshall.  While Hudson, Stevens, and Cromwell all act their parts brilliantly, there is not enough depth to their characters.  There are too many stereotypes with the other characters.  While that might be the point, Marshall just did not delve deep enough into the history of the time or the characters lives to give much more context other than stereotypes.

So, as always, here is the question I strive to answer, Should I Go or Just Say No?

For Marshall I have to Just Say NO and wait until it is released on DVD or TV.  It is a good movie to see eventually with great acting but for anyone with any knowledge of the civil rights movement this movie will offer nothing new or original.