This is Cheadle’s film, and with all the shortcomings he is still great. And even if the script has a few bad notes, the music is consistently exemplary.
An open-ended biopic with a glorious performance from Don Cheadle.
A largely inventive and energetic portrayal of a past-their-prime music legend that’s let down by its unnecessary trad biopic beats.
This could be Don Cheadle’s finest hour.
It is the start of an incredible journey that touches on aspects of Davis’s life, loves and self-destructive urges in a smoothly handled labour of love.
It’s a curio for Davis fans rather than a rewarding watch for people, like me, who knew little about him in the first place.
Like Davis’s music, the film’s structure is modal, with Cheadle getting the legend’s changing stance spot on, as we slip on a cymbal splash between his incarnations as the sharp-suited epitome of cool and the coke-addled “Howard Hughes of jazz”.
Don Cheadle: 'Miles Davis was probably bipolar'
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Monday June 27, 2016, until Thursday June 30, 2016. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
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