Miles Ahead

Movie Information

The Story: Fantasticated — nearly phantasmagorical — biographical film on jazz great Miles Davis. The Lowdown: A radical — but completely accessible and richly entertaining — approach to the much disdained biopic genre. Propelled by a towering performance by director, co-writer and star Don Cheadle, this is what movies ought to be all about. See this one!
Score:
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Genre: Musical Biography
Director: Don Cheadle
Starring: Don Cheadle. Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg, Emayatzy E. Corinealdi, LaKeith Lee Stanfield
Rated: R

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It’s early in the year, yes, but I’m ready to put forth Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead as a strong contender for best film of 2016 — I certainly can’t imagine it not making the top five. Yes, it’s really that good, and that’s why it’s not going to be “for everyone” (thank goodness). The poster’s tag line, “If you gotta tell a story, come with some attitude,” is dead on the money. Miles Ahead has attitude to spare in its screenplay (which Cheadle co-authored with Steven Baigelman), in Cheadle’s directing and in Cheadle’s performance as Miles Davis. In every aspect, this is a film that is overflowing with life and creativity.

 

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Bear in mind that I do not — as many are wont to do — look down on the biopic. (I understand that Cheadle — not unreasonably — rejects the term biopic. And, well, The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) or Walk the Line (2005) this isn’t.) Sure, there are lousy ones and there are some deadly academic ones — something that could be said of every genre — but, at its best, the biopic can fly as high as any other. And I haven’t been this blown away by a biopic since the golden age of Ken Russell in the 1970s. This is filmmaking. Cheadle has not attempted any sort of cradle-to-the-grave work. Instead, he focuses on the period of time right after Davis’ five-year absence from the music scene — an approach that affords a wild (and fantasticated) framing story involving a MacGuffin tape recording, a duplicitous manager (Michael Stuhlbarg), a quasi-Rolling Stone reporter who turns driver, sidekick and confidante to Davis (Ewan McGregor in his best role since The Ghost Writer in 2010), and plenty of room for flashbacks.

 

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It’s almost two movies in one, except neither could really exist without the other. The admittedly over-the-top and contrived (but so very entertaining) framing story affords the film a shape on which to hang the more free-form flashbacks. Those who are more fancifully minded may be inclined to think of aspects of the flashbacks as jazz (or “social music” as Davis insists on calling it) riffs. It would not be inapt, especially in such moments as the easy fantasy of the boxing scene. It is — or should be — obvious early on that Cheadle isn’t interested in offering us “The Miles Davis Story” but in giving us a combination of a shaggy dog adventure yarn — with perhaps something of Davis as he was seen by the public — and a marvelous portrait (not story) of the man and his music.

 

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Cheadle himself has been somewhat cagey about the film, saying, “There were wall-to-wall facts in that movie. They’re all jumbled around, but it’s truthful front to back.” There’s a core of truth to that, yes, but it might be better to say that Miles Ahead is more true in spirit than in fact — and that’s just fine. Without being able to prove it, I have a hunch this is a movie that its subject might well have enjoyed — both as the work of someone who “gets him” and as a wild ride, with Davis as a seemingly burned-out, cocaine-fueled, quasi-badass who can’t help peer out of that guise and let us know that he understands far more than the gun-waving, unfocused, belligerent character suggests.

 

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I am not going to attempt to delve into the story much more than I have. I’ll say that much of what happens is grounded Davis’ loss of his wife, Frances Taylor (Emayatzi Corinealdi), when she left him after years of abuse, philandering and even forcing her to abandon her own art in the service to his. This is the thrust that drives both the flashbacks and much of the rest of the film. But that’s not so much the point of the film, nor the reason for its greatness and that of the beautiful, sad, ferocious performance of its star that rests at its center. Rated R for strong language throughout, drug use, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence.

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About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

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11 thoughts on “Miles Ahead

  1. T.rex

    We are on the same page here. I loved it, it was fantastic and will also be high in my top ten list come year’s end.

    • Ken Hanke

      The really remarkable thing to me is that I am not a fan of Davis’ style of music. But the film…good Lord, is it terrific!

  2. Ken Hanke

    Please note, this will vanish from the Carolina Cinemark come Friday. It remains at the Fine Arts, but with no late shows this weekend and, well:

    Miles Ahead (R)
    1:00 (no 1:00 show Fri, Apr. 29), 4:00, 7:00 (no 7:00 show Thu., May 5)

    • T.rex

      I can’t believe that! Just when I was braggin that the Cinemark was going to be ok.

      • Ken Hanke

        Well, they had reason to drop it and the Fine Arts had reason to keep it.

  3. Raleigh-ite

    Wow. It’s as if the film were edited similar to the style of a jazz recording. Starting off slow and melancholy, with increasingly more jarring transitions between the “present” and flashback scenes, interspersed with flashes of boxing and musical images, culminating in the disorienting boxing ring scene, where images from past and present collide in a kaleidoscopic crescendo. I’m no jazz fan, but I can admire the artistry on display.

    • Ken Hanke

      I’m a pretty big fan of jazz from the 1920s and 30s, but after that…still, this transcends musical taste.

  4. Ken Hanke

    Alright, this leaves town this week, In point of fact, though it’s there all day on Wed and Thu, its evening shows are bumped for special screenings on those days. So it’s 1:20, 4:20 Tue, Wed, Thu. But the only remaining 7:20 shows are Mon. (tonight) and Tue.

  5. Matt Alley

    Well, I AM a big fan of Davis, since I was a teen in the late-seventies and early eighties. But the film transcends the music, as has been said. I was, however, blown away but the attention to detail in some of the scenes, detail that will be unappreciated by 999/1000 viewers. Like in the jazz club scene, the night Miles gets arrested for loitering. The band members — Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderly, Paul Chambers, et al — are all played by actors/musicians with more than a passing resemblance to the musicians themselves. And the piano riffs being played by “Bill Evans” sound just like piano riffs played by Bill Evans. (Maybe they actually were his — not sure.)

    Anyway, I went in not having read any reviews — I’ve been in southern Utah for a month not looking at media — so I truly didn’t even know what period of his life this movie purported to be about. I went in cold (but as a huge Cheadle fan as well as Miles) and came away delighted with the movie that was crafted here. And also feeling as I watched it that, as Raleighite above described, this movie unfolded just about like a great jazz composition. Brilliant!

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