Jah, 3.5 readers. We jammin, we jammin, and I hope you like this review.
BQB here with a review of the Bob Marley movie.
Most musician biopics follow a pretty standard cradle to grave structure. We first see our favorite singer as a kid, maybe they test their pipes out at a family gathering or a church social. Next thing you know, they’re a rebellious teenager starting a band. Blah, blah, blah, they sign a record deal. They fall in love. There’s some turmoil. They have a falling out with their band and their significant other. Hopefully they reconcile and find great success only to die a tragic death before they have a chance to sit back, relax and enjoy the fruits of their labors.
SIDENOTE: Why the heck do so many musicians fall into this pattern? Being a musician is a tough life.
Anyway, this movie ditches the linear path and chooses a zig-zag structure, starting with the most turbulent moment of Marley’s life, then moving forward to his super stardom and flashbacks to his youth to explain how he got there.
The story begins in the mid-1970s, a time of great strife in Jamaica. A turbulent election is underway and two warring factions are engaging in violence in the streets, almost to the point of all out civil war. Reggae musician Bob Marley, Jamaica’s number one celebrity known for his songs about rastafarianism, overcoming poverty, strife, yearning for peace, equality, ending racial injustice and so on, organizes a peace concert. His goal is to bring both sides together, bid them to lay down their arms for an evening and enjoy some music but alas, one of the factions misunderstands his intentions.
Under the mistaken assumption that Marley is throwing the concert to lend support to their enemy, one of the factions sends assassins to his compound to strike. Fortunately, the assassins prove to be quite incompetent. Marley and wife, Rita, his lead back-up singer are shot but survive while their manager, Don Taylor, gets shot six times, miraculously survives, yet becomes bitter and takes this tragedy as an excuse to later rob Bob.
Finding Jamaica unsafe, Marley goes into exile in the UK and there he puts out his best album, Exodus, which propels him into super stardom, giving birth to songs that you know and love today (and alas have been absconded with by the Carnival cruise line.)
The good? The movie doesn’t spoon feed anything to us. It goes with the show, don’t tell structure, which is important for quality writing. It brings us into the world of 1970s Rastafarian Jamaican singers and if we don’t understand it, that’s our problem. And when I say we don’t understand it, I mean, A) as Westerners, a lot of us won’t understand the ins and outs of the Rasta lifestyle but also B) the Rasta accents are pretty thick and heavy. Get ready for a lot of “Jah mon ya bombaclot” for an hour and 47 minutes. I’m not knocking it. I wouldn’t want an inauthentic Rasta movie where everyone talks like they’re from America. To the film’s credit, there’s a joke where Bob meets a white American. They converse and the guy blinks and is like, yeah, you’re going to have to say that to me again. Irony is, Bob is speaking English, just a form of English we Americans are not used to.
The movie doesn’t pull any punches either. It doesn’t sugarcoat anything. It shows a lot of the good Bob did, being a worldwide ambassador for Jamaica, Rastafarianism, peace, unity, ending racial strife, shining a light on the plight of the poor and downtrodden. But it doesn’t give Bob a pass for the bad, namely all the affairs despite having a wife who had his back from childhood and walked through all sorts of fire for him. We do see Marley had a lot of kids, both with his wife and through affairs. It doesn’t get too deep into him being an absentee father though as a viewer you can put two and two together and wonder who is being a Dad to all these kids when he’s busy making music and going on tour.
The bad? While the show, don’t tell is a plus, it’s a minus in some ways. This movie is probably the biggest commercial Rastafarianism will ever get and they probably could have spoon fed a little more to the average Western viewer who doesn’t know anything more about this religion other than Rasta dudes wear funny, colorful hats and smoke a lot of weeds. You still do learn a lot but the religion is central to the plot and I had to google a lot when I got home to figure some things out.
They probably could have fleshed out a little more about the civil strife in Jamaica, what everyone was fighting about, and they might have fleshed out “the wailers” i.e. Bob’s band. Bob’s bandmates are pretty one dimensional other than they’re presented as pretty loyal to him all throughout his youth well into his fame.
For a biopic, it’s short and I suppose if it had been longer, we’d be complaining about it, but I don’t know. If they could have fleshed out some more details, I wouldn’t have minded an extra half hour. All in all, a decent movie though.
Kingsley Ben-Adir plays Marley well and it must have been a challenge to match his funky dance moves on stage. Lashana Lynch plays Rita, Bob’s long suffering wife who eventually becomes so sick of Bob’s cheating that she does some cheating of her own. Sopranos fans will be pleased to see Michael Gandolfini in a small part as a record producer.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy, mon.
Bookshelf Battle 
Coincidentally, another blog I follow reviewed this film as well. They didn’t go as descriptive as you (yours are always the best!), but they also liked the film.
I learned so much about Rasta. I’m probably explaining this wrong but black people are lions. They were taken from Africa and enslaved and oppressed to test their worthiness for Heaven. When they die they go to Africa which is Heaven. I assume like a Heaven version of Africa because otherwise what happens to black people in Africa now? They believe the former Emperor of Ethiopia from the 1900s was the reincarnation of Jesus and idk somehow smoking weed and growing dreads is part of it. I think they still believe in the bible too though. If I were black I’d totally be a rasta, mon.
Ha! Maybe you can embrace it, even without being black?
Jah mon
Upon hearing about the release of the new Bob Marley movie, my initial reaction was brimming with curiosity and a sense of longing for a deeper exploration of his life. I couldn’t help but wonder why there wasn’t more—more insight into his background, more focus on his family dynamics. Perhaps, I mused, the film could have adopted a multi-series format akin to the intricate storytelling seen in “The Crown,” allowing for a thorough examination of Marley’s journey.
However, as I delved deeper into the intentions behind the movie, a realization dawned upon me. This film wasn’t aiming to dissect every aspect of Marley’s personal life; rather, its primary focus lay on celebrating his music and the enduring legacy he left behind. It became evident that the family’s desire was to prioritize his musical contributions over delving into his private affairs.
This revelation was accompanied by an understanding of the practical challenges faced by the filmmakers. A small budget and a scarcity of suitable actors in Jamaica posed significant hurdles. The dilemma between authenticity and acting ability loomed large—finding performers who could authentically embody Marley’s spirit while also delivering strong acting performances proved to be a daunting task.
In the end, the decision-making process behind the direction of the film was undoubtedly arduous. Balancing the desires of the family, the constraints of the budget, and the need for authenticity in casting required careful consideration. Yet, despite the challenges, someone had to step up and make the tough decisions to bring Marley’s story to life on the screen.