Caught up on the film Marshall on iTunes rental the other day. This is a movie about a case Thurgood Marshall took years before he became the first black justice on the US Supreme Court.
The film has Marshall as an NAACP lawyer helping in a case of a black man accused of raping and attempting to murder a white woman in Connecticut in the early 1940s. He works through a local lawyer played by Josh Gad (?!) since he’s not part of the Connecticut Bar.
This is a courtroom drama and not at all a biopic. It only covers the handful of months of the court case. As a courtroom drama, it’s not bad. There are masterclass movies set in courtrooms and this is not one of them but it’s still good enough. Well acted. Reasonably smart… though some of the arguments (which could be fictionalized or could be part of the real case) seem slim… like the size of rocks one could throw into a river.
My real problem with the movie is that it gives us title cards at the end explaining all the great things Thurgood Marshall would go on to do. You know, like Brown vs. Board of Education, arguing before the Supreme Court, or joining the Supreme Court. No insult to the case covered in the film, but it was pretty small potatoes. A local, one-off issue. Maybe that was the point – to show the early days instead of the usual, expected big events. I guess that’s ok in general… it just made me want to see that part of his life instead.
So, overall a fine movie with good acting. It was a little weird that Josh Gad, comedian and professional snowman, would be in such a dramatic role but he fared well. Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood Marshall was powerful and played it with a twinkle in his eye. Worth seeing.
Score: 81