Another week, another biopic. This charts the rise to fame and death of the reggae legend and stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley, along with Lashana Lynch as his wife Rita, and James Norton as his producer.
There is a great start where we are thrown into a Jamaica on the verge of civil war in 1976. Marley’s musical message of peace seems completely at odds with the reality of his life and that tension is brought to life really well by director Reinaldo Marcus Green.
Whilst there is much to enjoy with what follows, nothing matches the energy of those opening scenes. The script was written by a combination of Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin and the director shows signs of having too many cooks at times. The flashbacks/hallucinations of his childhood are clunky and the moment leading to his cancer diagnosis is heavily handled.
The advantage, though, this has over recent music biopics when the story starts to lag, a cracking tune is thrown in, so it’s always engaging. The scenes of the band creating their music and the concert performances are well-staged. It is helpful that the Marley family were deeply involved in the making of this film, so there is access to Marley’s entire catalogue, but that also results in the story being overly sanitised.
Ben-Adir is suitably charismatic, Lynch impressive, and Norton makes the most of his limited screen time.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10