Miles Ahead (2016)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Masterpiece!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This could have been a great film. Miles Davis was a great musician, had an amazing life, and was a truly wild character. The acting and production quality were very good; what happened to the writers?I know Davis had some great stories to tell, because I heard one about him. He was in the hospital recovering from vocal chord surgery, and was instructed to rest his voice. Instead, he flew into a rage over something and started screaming at everybody, resulting in that whispery, raspy voice for life. Now, I don't know if that was true, but if a story that great could have been even made up about the dude, a cool flick could have resulted....I am glad they didn't do a Lifetime channel sugar coated movie, thus the 3 stars. However, a confusing day in the life of an irritable addict does not a film make. It would have been interesting to see how he rose from the upper middle class of being a dentists son, to the upper upper class of being a high paid celebrity musician. I know Davis was no gangsta, but they could have played off that and at least done some wanna b insight into a spoiled professionals son trying to be hard. At least they could have done the Indie Flick slow, depressing depressed addict thing, since he was addicted and therefore like all addicts he was depressed. Instead, we get a sort of rock video , part MTV, part 60 minutes, part movie of the week ; it's as hideous and confusing as any creature with a three parent DNA makeup.

When I heard that a Miles Davis biopic was in the works, the first question I had was, "how many women is Miles Davis going to punch in the face in this movie?" The answer is: one, but only under duress.Everybody knows Miles was a woman beater. In a time like the present when feminism is on everybody's mind, the time is certainly not right for a biopic about a man who treats women the way he did.I expected the movie to either cop out and avoid mentioning it, or try to justify it somehow. It takes the latter tack. Miles hits his wife, Frances, in this movie, more out of self defence than anything else. She goes completely crazy throwing things at him, and he doesn't hit her. Then she hits him. It looks, for all the world, like she wants Miles to hit her.So that's how they get away with that.Aside from that, "Miles Ahead" is a pretty typical biopic. It shows a long few days in Miles' life during his shut-in period in the late '70s. He occasionally sees things that take him down memory lane, like old album covers: cue flashbacks. The flashbacks show his relationship with his first wife, Frances Davis. We don't see any of his fatherhood, and you certainly wouldn't know he had two more wives after that one.These flashbacks are, ultimately, less interesting than the main narrative. They don't grab your attention all that much and there isn't much in the way of detail for the jazz fan - yes, Gil Evans makes a blink and you'll miss it appearance, but what about the band mates? They are credited as "piano player", "bass player", etc. This is jazz. One player is as important as any other. But they can't even credit them with names? If they played with Miles on his classic sessions, they were legends.The main narrative often stretches credibility, but it is entertaining. It is here that Don Cheadle's portrayal of Miles really shines.You find yourself wondering, repeatedly, if any of that stuff really happened, but at least Cheadle is having fun. This narrative even employs a McGuffin: a stolen tape that contains the first music Miles has recorded in five years. We take a journey with Miles to Columbia records, jazz clubs, the houses of drug dealers, and Miles' own house, as he tries to retrieve it.The performance of Cheadle's in these scenes makes the movie worth watching, but it is too forgiving of Miles wife-beating in the flashbacks, and too hard to believe in its main narrative.

There are just so many of these films. I don't know what's the point anymore.Musicians come in all sorts, poor, rich, instantly successful, eventually successful, famous, unknown, etc. They suffer from a variety of problems - writer's block, love, heartbreak, etc.But it seems that every film about a musician is reduced to a period where he's addicted to drugs and can barely work as a musician. You have an entire career of an artist, and you want to pick this moment to make a film about?The problem is that everyone is doing this, so every film about music, from bands to solo artist to record executives (HBO's Vinyl) are about drugs. Music is just the background.The story is "let's score some drugs," "let's do some drugs" and finally "let's retrieve some tape." There are some period references, boxing, police brutality, racial tensions, but they were added in later as spices rather than essential elements of the plot.Don Cheadle's acting was great. I don't know if his direction is great because the final product isn't. Cheadle is the lead actor, the director, has writing credits and is the producer - the film is not good, so it's gotta be his fault. I think he should've had less control on the picture. The only worse thing than having an army of yes men is having yourself in every position, high-fiving yourself for every decision.The choice to pick this part of Davis' life was flawed to begin with. This is not a film about a musician that does drugs, this is about a junkie who also plays music sometimes.

I am big of both Miles Davis and Don Cheadle. Biopics are difficult to get right and I was encouraged when I learned that Cheadle would direct and only focus on a part of Davis' life - and an interesting one at that. The film overall is uneven and disappointing but does succeed in capturing the allure and eccentricities of Davis. I had a hard time believing the plot to steal and recover the tapes. I don't recall reading this in his autobiography but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It seemed silly and not befitting a jazz great to have his life boil down to a cops and robbers chase in the alley. Cheadle, the actor, captured the essence of Davis but struggled to anchor the film's narrative. The flashback scenes were gratuitous and inaccurate. Davis was beaten by a cop on 52nd Street not outside the Village Vanguard. The poster outside the Vanguard says he is playing with Red Garland but they Bill Evans playing piano inside. Stuff like that kills the movie for a real lover of Davis' work. I do think the filmmaker really captured the relationship with Frances correctly. That was haunting and beautiful and my guess is that it should have been the focus of the whole movie.