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Feb 28, 2017lukasevansherman rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself."-Miles Davis Given the importance of jazz in American music, there are a shamefully low amount of films about jazz. When a movie does feature jazz, it often treats it like a museum piece, such as in "La La Land," in which the white savior character (Ryan Gosling) pursues the "traditional" path and his peer (John Legend) corrupts it by adding contemporary influences. "Miles Ahead" also came out in 2016 and though it's about an actual jazz musician, it couldn't find much of an audience. It's a frustrating and flawed film, but I still wish it had done better, if only to introduce a larger audience to Miles Davis's music. His impact and influence transcended jazz and, really, anyone who cares about music should care about Davis. This is clearly a labor of love for Don Cheadle, who stars as Davis, but also directed, co-wrote, and produced. Cheadle alone is reason to see this, as he captures Davis's raspy growl, intimidating talent, and intense charisma. Cheadle took a different approach to the biopic, which is to be commended, but it ends up muddle. Hi picks up with Miles in the 70s, when he's quit performing in public and spent more time holed up in his house doing drugs then making music. It does flashback to earlier times, but the narrative is erratically constructed. Ewan MacGregor's journalist character is kinda pointless, as is the plot of Miles trying to get a tape of his music back. There's not enough music either, which is a pretty big problem, and I feel someone who came into this without knowing much of Davis would think of him more as a pistol packing, egocentric drug fiend than the groundbreaking musician that he was. Emayatzy Corinealdi plays Frances Taylor, his first wife, and Michael Stuhlbarg plays a sleazy record executive (Are there any other kind?). If you have any interest in Davis, you should watch this, but then pick up his records and his 1989 autobiography. He sure did like the word "motherf***er."