Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), Tommy Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), John Froines (Daniel Flaherty), and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins) were the Chicago 7. Along with Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), co-founder of the Black Panther Party, these eight men captivated America from 1969-70 while on trial for inciting a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention — a bloody protest witnessing the Chicago Police Department viciously beating unarmed demonstrators, which culminated in Mayor Daley instituting his infamous shoot to kill order. All told, of 100,000 protestors, 668 were arrested, 400 were given first aid for tear gas exposure, and 110 went to a hospital.
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Acting Attorney General under Richard Nixon John N. Mitchell (John Doman) enlists 33-year old prosecutor Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to try the band of anti-establishment protestors. A composite character, who often leans too closely into a well-meaning bureaucratic tool, he charges the group under The Rap Brown Act — a law passed to limit the free speech of Civil Rights activists by prohibiting the transportation of violence across state lines. Under the decorations of purposely schlocky wigs, snappy dialogue, and melodramatic court proceedings, Aaron Sorkin’s courtroom period piece “Trial of the Chicago 7” comedically zips, but even with an uplifting final act, bristles under a warranted outrage that often feels too manufactured.
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In its opening act, “Chicago 7” struggles to gain momentum. Composer Daniel Pemberton’s usual talent for assured compositions — in “Steve Jobs” and “Molly’s Game” — is bizarrely out of step, here. For example, an opening montage features footage recounting the Vietnam draft and Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy speaking just prior to their respective assassinations, yet the percussion and horns jump jocularly. The displacement isn’t solely due to Pemberton.
A second quippy montage of the key players talking of their travel plans to Chicago follows the previous downtrodden images in quick succession, forcing Pemberton to choose between the two disparate moods. Weaving lighthearted humor with the story’s weighty events is a habitual struggle for “Chicago 7” through its uptempo first acts. This is especially true whenever Sorkin cuts away to Abbie performing stand-up. Sure the sentiment of these scenes, which are set on college campuses, are meant to capture his importance to the youth movement, but the integration tonally grates.
The ensemble’s collective performance veers between being show-stopping and falling into parody. While some of the actors provide Sorkin’s melodrama some grounding, Strong as Rubin protrudes. Though Strong serves as the comic foil, and his performance is meant to be hammy, by not even sounding like Rubin, he reduces the actual whip-smart man into a Cheech and Chong impression. The route Strong takes would be interesting, if it worked among the characters, but as the proceedings ratchet in seriousness, he diminishes, especially as his caricature feels put on. Baron-Cohen is one of the few actors who can adequately balance the grave with the buffoon. Consequently, he produces the film’s strongest showing.
While Abdul-Mateen II is a scene-stealer as Seale, the rest of the Black Panthers are pretty much afterthoughts. It might not necessarily be their story, but like Strong as Rubin, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Fred Hampton doesn’t embody the figure he’s portraying. Partly he’s competing against the sensational turn Daniel Kaluuya showed in the brief trailer for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” but even if one subtracts that element, he’s referred to as Hampton on multiple occasions yet I just never found him believable. It’s the little details “Chicago 7” messily gets wrong.
Even with those reservations, this is still a hilarious yet poignant period piece. While Sorkin might lean into the spectacle of the trial too heavily, he’s probably never seen an episode of “Law & Order” or a 90’s legal drama he didn’t like, the picture still churns. When Seale explains how his tactics differ from previous Civil Rights leaders, in reference to MLK he exclaims, “He has a dream? Well, now he has fuckin’ bullet in his head.” Abdul-Mateen II’s other major moment, which shows Seale bound and gag, makes one’s blood boil. The actor’s ability to impart pain with the fewest of words hints at what the dialogue-heavy story flirts with. “Chicago 7” finds its best footing when exacting the multiple ways our justice system — through surveillance and assassination — so often wraps itself under the banner of injustice.
This theme continues in a provocative scene involving former-Attorney General Ramsey Clark (Michael Keaton) speaking with Hayden and defense attorneys William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) and Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman). Keaton is gripping in his limited screen time opposite the mild-mannered Rylance. Langella as the unstable Judge Julius Hoffman plays the perfect type of villain, the one you want thrown off a cliff.
But so often, Sorkin inorganically constructs his courtroom scenes into climatic shouting matches that involve characters slamming books onto the table. And as much as “Chicago 7” interests itself in the right to protest, Sorkin portrays the act of protesting inertly. For example, the perfectly synced “The Whole World is Watching” falls into the worst instincts of Hollywood to create order when there is none. Anyone who’s ever been to a raucous protest knows how much fuel liberating disorder provides. “Chicago 7” could be grittier, but it’s never willing to step outside of its safe witty confines.
While many will draw parallels between scenes involving civil unrest to the events of 2020, the philosophical differences between Hayden and Abbie — electoral versus cultural revolution, respectively — ring closely to the debates raging within progressive politics today, and actually prove more interesting. But how much viewers engage with the “Trial of the Chicago 7” will have more to do with its naturally captivating story, and the comedic dialogue, than anything Sorkin as a director provides. But through a punch-the-air final act, one that’s the definition of defiance, Sorkin’s melodrama reassures us of the power of sticking to one’s beliefs. [B-]
