Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

I have to tell you, I watched Marshall and I thought about how many movies like this were greenlit while Obama was still in office. What potential is there for the Trump Era to usher in more movies that inch closer to "white nationalist" -- or more overtly white supremacist -- perspectives? Honestly I think that given the nature of Hollywood, and the Bush years as a reference, more films about resistance are likely. Then again, who knows? Are these paranoid thoughts? Just consider this nation's history. To think things can't get bad again is a little naive.

Marshall focuses on an early, key case in the life of Thurgood Marshall (played by Chadwick Boseman), the man who would go on to become the first African American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. Some three decades earlier, he was the sole lawyer working for the NAACP, and he comes to a Connecticut town to represent Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), a black man falsely accused of rape.

It's too bad such an early, landmark case has to be framed in such a way, which makes things uncomfortable in unintended ways, particularly in our current cultural climate of unprecedented numbers of women speaking out about sexual assault. We currently live in an era, after all, when years of associated silence equals complicity on the part of sexual predators, be they Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby. There's a lot of intersectionality to unpack there, but that's not the purpose of this review.

The flip side is that a whole lot of cultural context was flipped around eighty years ago, a time when some Civil War veterans were still living. A wealthy white woman (Kate Hudson) has consensual sex with a black chauffeur, then panics at the thought of a great many things far more frightening to someone in her position than they would be now: not just getting caught by her husband, but the chance of getting pregnant, and how she will then be treated by her community. Never mind how black people are treated by the community to begin with, of course.

So it's complicated, and honestly, director Reginald Hudlin oversimplifies it a bit, with writers Jacob and Michael Kaskoff packing their script with subtle yet unmistakable contrivances. There's a slightly odd tone to this movie, particularly in the beginning -- it's as though the movie is a little too proud of itself for being profound. Except Thurgood Marshall was himself far more profound than this film could ever be. It's a tone that will likely work fine for most viewers, but it didn't quite work for me.

But then the details of the case at hand come to the forefront, and we get lots of courtroom scenes, including a great supporting performance by James Cromwell as Judge Foster. Foster is the one who declares local lawyer Sam Friedman (Josh Gad), who thought he was just offering a quick favor to get Marshall on the case, will be lead council for the defense. Friedman is himself a Jewish man, and there are a few references to the rise of the Third Reich. This gives Friedman a means of empathy as a member of another oppressed minority, an element of his and Thurgood's relationship -- particularly when Friedman gets assaulted just for being associated with Thurgood -- that gets laid on a little thick. So, some things in this movie are less subtle than others.

Still, the court scenes, complete with the prosecuting attorney played by Dan Stevens (Matthew from Downton Abbey), are the tasty meat of Thurgood, and are what made it worth seeing. The approaches of both sides reveal a lot about the "arc of the moral universe," as it's called, in the history of America, if you're paying attention.

That said, given the historical significance of the man, this film could have done better justice -- so to speak -- to the memory of Thurgood Marshall. Here there are solid performances and a worthy story, but nothing likely to be remembered for long. Would that the movie about him could have the same impact the man himself had. Imperfections notwithstanding, this is a story that deserves attention.

*Josh Gad, Chadwich Boseman, and Sterling K. Brown, bending toward justice.*

Overall: B