Bob Marley: One Love
Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley overcomes adversity to become the most famous reggae musician in the world.
- Released: 2024-01-10
- Runtime: 130 minutes
- Genre: Drama, Music
- Stars: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, Jesse Cilio, Tosin Cole, Michael Gandolfini, Nadine Marshall, James Norton, Anthony Welsh, Sundra Oakley, Nestor Aaron Absera, Hector Donald Lewis, Umi Myers, Cornelius Grant
- Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Comments
- peteraziz-62256 - 16 June 2024
Good film - falls short of its potential
Overall I must give this 5/10.
The film is average at best. And now I must preface, 5 being average is not a bad thing. It entails the film delivering adequately in its plot, script, performances, directing, music and all that it entails.
But it does fail short to become great or to contain elements of greatness in it. Truth be told my biggest gripe is with the casting.
Both lead actors did very well especially the main lead male actor who toned the physical delivery of Bob Marley. But it is not enough to carry the film to greatness.
The plot as well is a bit iffy, since the story is so vast it's difficult to tell the entire tale. But they managed to get good points in there.
Lastly, you could see lip singing at certain points.
So overall.. 5/10 but a good watch if you want to see a movie about the legend of Bob Marley.
Follow my acting journey on Ig:
Pewa4real One love. - birth_dance - 26 May 2024
A biracial man who sought to unify the races
I loved this movie and cannot bring myself to give it less than a perfect rating, because it affected me profoundly. Bob Marley was a biracial man who was rejected by both sides of his family, yet dedicated his life to uniting humanity. (He was born in the 1940s, at a time when biracial people were much less accepted than they are in 2024, although things are certainly not perfect in this regard yet.) As a biracial person watching this film, I felt incredible pride for the gifts that those with our experiences can offer the world.
Although I cannot bring myself to give this film less than a perfect rating for myself, I can see how some viewers might feel like the film did not fully work for them. Personally, I am not highly experienced with Jamaican patois, but my brain felt compelled to follow along with it and make sense of it, because I saw something very important happening on the screen. However, the language was an impediment to my partner who felt that he understood less than half of it. At first, I loved the decision not to use subtitles, but now I feel a sadness that for some viewers, this will compromise their experience of this incredible film.
There are several scenes in this film where Bob Marley's character is quietly contemplating a dilemma he is faced with, whether it is a fear for his wife's safety, or digesting news about his health. I found these moments to be meditative and deeply moving. I struggle a lot with films where the visual images change every second or two, which happens in action films, but also in movies about music and dance, which are some of my favorite subjects. This film did not do that, which I was extremely grateful for. I was able to soak in the emotion of each scene without it being visually chaotic in that way.
I can see how different viewers would have different experiences of this movie, based on what they did or did not know previously about Bob Marley before seeing it, and their level of ease in catching onto the dialect. Based on my own background, this movie was a lifetime favorite for me. I hope many more people will see it and learn from it, even if their experience is not identical to mine. - MovieswDan - 3 May 2024
This movie was bad.
I have always enjoyed Marley's music but did not know too much about the man himself, other than the things that everyone knows about him: how influential he was, he practiced the Rastafarian religion, and died young of cancer. I was looking forward to learning more about the musician's story, similar to how Rocketman taught me more about Elton John and Bohemian Rhapsody taught me more about Freddie Mercury. I also discovered that Bob Marley's children, Ziggy and Cedella, along with his wife Rita and daughter-in-law Orly, all served as producers on this project which made me even more excited to see this film.
Unfortunately, I felt that this movie fell well short of expectations. Admittedly, I was a little concerned with how heavily the film was being marketed; sometimes the trailer would be shown multiple times in one sitting which in itself was bizarre. When a movie is over marketed like that, it is sometimes a telltale sign that it is not that good. There was nothing wrong with the acting, and the music was great. Kingsley Ben-Adir, who played Marley, did an excellent job and even performed all of the songs for the movie. However, I felt that the story was too sporadic, it seemed like the editing team wasn't sure how to tie the story together, so just threw a bunch of different scenes in and called it day. I remember one specific instance in the film when we are seeing a montage of Marley's European tour. During the montage, we see Bob open the door of his hotel room to be greeted by a beautiful woman who is not his wife, but then we never see anything else in the entire movie related to that instance. We never find out who she was or why she was at his hotel room.
This movie had a lot of potential to be very good but fell short due to the screenwriting and film editing. My overall rating for this film is a 5/10. Of course, I recommend checking this movie out and making your own opinions.
Thanks for reading!!
