REVIEW: Don Cheadle as Miles Davis in ‘MILES AHEAD’

 

The film that has been a long time coming has finally arrived. Miles Ahead is the first and only ever biopic of the late, great jazz trumpeter, composer, and so multi-hyphenate of a musician we don’t have enough room here, the incomparable Miles Davis.

And like its subject, Miles Ahead departs from the usual fare.

As the genius behind jazz, bebop, freebop, and jazz fusion records like “Birth of the Cool,” “Kind of Blue,” which is still the best selling jazz album of all time at quadruple platinum status, “Nefertiti,” and “Bitches Brew,” to name very few, Miles Davis still stands as arguably one of the most innovative musicians of all time – and perhaps one of the most haunted, which is saying a lot. Through one of Miles’ most downtrodden moments is where Miles Ahead begins, in medias res, in 1979 during his controversial retirement from the business.

Tormented by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, Miles’ talent is also numbed by an untold number of drugs and pain medications, and his mind troubled by unsettling ghosts from the past, most notably that of his first wife and muse, the beautiful dancer Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi – Middle of Nowhere). He becomes jolted out of his stupor by ambitious reporter Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor, Beginners), as they inadvertently end up on a drug addled and gun-toting ride to reclaim Miles’ stolen recordings, which everyone just knows will trigger his comeback.

So yeah, Beverly Hills Cop meets Coal Miner’s Daughter is not the type of Miles Davis biography film you would imagine; yet here it is. And while it succeeds in its ambition and bravado, it also falters for its same loftiness.

Starring as Miles, and directing the film, is the (practically) equally great Don Cheadle. The prolific actor makes his directorial debut here after being pursued for some time by Davis’ family and others as his look and acting chops indeed mark him as the ideal candidate to play the jazz legend. Initially hesitant as he didn’t want to play in yet another tired “based on a true story” film, Cheadle admits he began to “imagine a film that would capture Miles as who he was, a man full of drive and forward momentum but also mercurial and dangerous…I realized that it would never happen unless I wrote it. So I asked the family if they were okay with that and they said, “Cool. Do it.”

 

 

And he does it well. From the raspy voice to the scary incessant stare, Cheadle nails Miles in more than imitation – he inhabits the pathos and flair of Davis as if he lived the man’s life. If not for certain Hollywood-type moments, including a well-done if not sore thumb bullet-firing car chase that opens the film, you kind of forget that it’s not Davis himself on screen. And seeing as how Miles did act in a handful of films, mostly as himself, perhaps his presence isn’t too hard to imagine. No one can really replicate Miles Davis, and Cheadle doesn’t try – he just does it, and succeeds best as the younger 1960’s era Miles – already successful and finding a stronger path to become more his own man.

Maybe Cheadle is playing himself then.

Cheadle’s chemistry with Corinealdi is also palpable. When he first sees her dance – a master at her talent like he is at hers – he finds his equal, at least for that moment in time. They are tender with one another, instantly enamored for life, yet even without knowing for sure you’re aware it won’t last. Playing the character of Junior is Keith Stanfield (Straight Outta Compton, Short Term 12), who as a then modern day young version of Miles is talented, troubled, and confused as to where his life should go next. The one thing Junior (who historically Miles was also called at one time, much to his chagrin) is fully confident about is his music, and though a salient allegorical character, you are rooting for him to succeed almost as much as you are for Miles to.

 

 

While the production design is very sound, (actually, it’s quite clever throughout) it seems that visually, there was a serious attempt at creating some distance between the contemporary Miles and the audience through the dull amber tones of his home and surroundings, and by Cheadle’s acting, while not so much by the camera as is usually the wont. This is perhaps no keen revelation, as Miles portrayed here, haunted from his past and in a creative and personal vacuum, wants no one near him.

Meanwhile, Miles’ music is such a soundtrack for the universe, that although you’re watching a biopic, you sometimes forget that, duh, we’re hearing Miles underneath and not some expertly generated score (though the composition of such by impresario Robert Glasper is expert), but the Miles Davis himself, telling his story, and ours, through his life work, through his blood.

Still, while the film is quite capable, departing from a “he did this, then he did that” biopic structure, I’m unsure how many Miles Davis fans will be genuinely interested. I can attest that Don Cheadle fans, of which there are legion, should be, as this is one of the best performances of his career.

Miles Ahead closed the 2015 New York Film Festival and played at this year’s Sundance and SXSW Film Festivals to much aplomb, all leading to its opening on Friday, April 1 in New York and Los Angeles – and hopefully a lot of attention from audiences that love jazz, Miles, and Don Cheadle alike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related links:

• Website: https://www.milesdavis.com/miles-ahead/
• Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/milesaheadfilm/