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March 31, 2016
Review: Miles Ahead

21“Don’t call it jazz – that’s some made up word, it’s social music”  Miles Davis (Don Cheadle) tells the reporter during an interview that bookends the film.  Miles Ahead takes place during the late 1970s, an extended break in which Davis' career was stunted by guilty pleasures.  He experiences a rough patch after the divorce with wondrous dancer, Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi).  This storyline plays out allegorically while the present action of debauchery progresses as Davis and a pestering journalist, Dave Brill (Ewan McGregor) track down stolen tapes.  The film correlates his past relationship with maintaining control over the only thing in life he has left, his music, intertwining both storylines toward a spellbinding climax.

While becoming the groundbreaking icon, Don Cheadle co-writes a screenplay driven by the eccentric's stand of mind, and makes his high-stakes directorial debut.  Understandably, the film’s spinal chord is the music.  So much so, that the soundtrack is unrestricted by the time-period of certain scenes. Music from Davis’ career plays throughout – even tracks that have not been recorded. Now, if the film aims to keep a vigorous first-person perspective through his past and present, are we then led to believe the entirety of Miles Davis’ discography was in his head even in the early stages of his career?  Before he had experimented musically or socially... before anybody had... before the country had drastically changed?  Perhaps.  His music was how he expressed himself, fair enough.  But this might have just been a stylistic choice by the director to max out full access the studio was granted by the icon's estate.  Is this choice as self-indulgent as Quentin Tarantino mashing up James Brown and 2Pac while a slave fights for his wife’s freedom? No, not at all. But in a film that surfaces Miles Davis’ flaws as much as his strengths, such a virtuosic idea is unnecessary and contrived.

After the film's resolution, its ending credits feature a prolonged documentary-style jam session with Miles Davis (still played by Don Cheadle), Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter (playing themselves) and rock-blues newcomer, Gary Clark Jr.  That’s like if a Michael Jordan biopic ended with a casual shoot-around with Don Cheadle acting as MJ, Stephen Curry pretending he’s Scotty Pippen, while Dennis Rodman and Phil Jackson play themselves from forty years ago.  And if this wasn’t distracting enough, the credits/pretend live concert then ended with a title card that read: “1926 –    ”.  I understand this is supposed to be a nice memorial to the immortality of Miles Davis' music, but the man is dead, let’s not momentarily fool any younger audiences with hacky last minute nods. Unless they were referring to Don Cheadle, which at this point, it was hard to say.

Miles Ahead is in limited relase starting April 1st

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Written by: David Knuckles
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