Bob Marley: One Love is a pretty basic biopic of Bob Marley… but it only really covers three years of his life with a smattering of flashbacks to his youth. It opens with him in Jamaica during a time of political strife, follows him abroad as he makes the album Exodus, and then on tour.

This movie is… ok. It takes a broad paintbrush to Marley’s life and results in a kind of blank slate character we don’t really learn much about. For example, we see him on tour and his billboard hot 100 listing, but they failed to mention how famous he was beforehand (outside of Jamaica). Also, they barely acknowledge his kids… though a young Ziggy show up (he’s a producer on the film).

The songs are great… they run through a lot of the A sides pretty quickly at the start and then into what I think are deeper cuts (at least I didn’t recognize ’em all). Kingsley Ben-Adir does a fine job playing the part… convincingly with a thick Jamaican accent (that I had to lean in to understand, to be honest).

The film gets a little sloggy in the final act when I thought it should be more emotional… it’s just that we don’t really learn enough about the characters to care too deeply when things go south.

So… yeah… there’s honestly not a lot more to be said. The movie is pretty decent… hardly the best biopic but not the worst either. It falls right in the middle.

Score: 76