Bob Marley: One Love faces the daunting task of telling the story of one of the biggest names in music in under two-hours, and while Kingsley Ben-Adir is spectacular in the role of Bob Marley, the movie itself just misses the mark in doing Marley, and the iconic music he was making during this time, proper justice. The best way I can describe the feeling of the movie is to say that it comes off as Coles Notes (or Cliff Notes) summary of one of the most pivotal times in Marley’s life.
The movie begins in 1976, right before Marley is set to perform his free concert, Smile Jamaica, in his home country in an attempt to bring peace to two warring political sides. While preparing for the concert, Marley, his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch), and other band members are shot by a pair of assailants looking to stop the concert from happening. Rita is shot in the head, but as crazy as it may sound, her dreadlocks stopped the bullet from penetrating her brain and killing her. Here’s where the Coles Notes notion comes in, as you can condense a period of time when telling a biographical story like this; however, there’s a way to do it where it feels natural. Here it feels like Bob leaves the hospital, and then he’s pretty much at the concert preparing to go on stage and Rita shows up, her head bandaged, but ready to sing.
Now, the shooting happened two days before the concert, but that’s not told in the movie, and it’s not entirely clear to the audience how injured Rita is after the shooting. Sure, her dreadlocks stopped the bullet, but did it still enter her skull at all? They said she was lucky, which indicated to me that she would’ve died otherwise, and may be out of action for a while, or require physiotherapy. Alas, not the case. I’m hyper focusing on this one moment, but it’s just an example of how the movie takes small jumps in time and we as the viewers are just left to fill in the blanks. Rita says she checked herself out of the hospital and she’s ready to go.
Bob goes out on stage, begins to perform (against the wishes of those closest to him for his own safety), then stops. In the movie he sees his shooter in the audience aiming the gun at him once again and the man shoots. This is all in Bob’s head, but it throws him for a loop. He stops the show, shows the audience his bullet wounds from two days prior, then walks off stage. He tells Rita to take the kids and go to stay with his mother in the States, and he heads to London with his band in an attempt to create a new album.
It’s in London where Bob Marley creates Exodus, a record that is viewed as one of the best of all time, and its creation, as well as the reasoning behind it is the main focus of the movie. Bob is trying to put a message out into the world, he wants to bring people together, but again it often feels like things are glossed over. The film portrays Bob as incredibly genuine, and someone who’s always looking at the positive side of things, or looking to bring out the best in people, yet it only hints at his extramarital affairs.
There’s one awkward scene where Bob sees Rita talking to another guy at a party and after the guy leaves Bob goes over to ask who that was. She says it was just some promoter, and Bob is irked. Rita leaves the party and Bob follows and they have a blowup out in the empty night street. He mentions knowing about her “guy in Jamaica” that she cheated on him with, and Rita screams at him about how she needs more from him than just money, and that she’s the one staying at home watching their kids – including the ones he’s had with other women.
Again, this is just a completely out of left field moment for those not overly familiar with Bob Marley’s life, and a complete tonal shift (albeit only momentarily) for the film and the man. We’ve had no real indication that Bob was out there philandering, especially to the point of having multiple children with other women. We then go right back to Bob focusing on the music, other larger issues arise, and Rita returns to be by his side almost instantaneously. It’s completely fine if their relationship is so strong that even with these discretions they truly do love one another on a much deeper level that surpasses those things; however, if you’re going to bring these things up I would’ve preferred for this to have been steadily built up throughout and not so abruptly thrown in there as we’re nearing the third act of the film.
There are a few other subplots that aren’t really even subplots and are treated more like small moments that deserve a bigger spotlight. One of the bigger ones is Bob Marley’s manager, Don Taylor, who was shot five times when the shooter at the start of the film was firing at Bob. This is a man who is incredibly close to Bob, yet at some point he begins skimming money and everyone seems to know about it but Bob. This should be a pivotal moment in Bob’s life, yet it all comes out in a single scene and it’s not entirely clear what the outcome of the confrontation is when the dust settles. The movie just keeps moving forward and the emotional toll that must be weighing on Bob just never comes through properly because the movie often doesn’t build things up or slow down to let things resonate.
What this does is make Bob Marley: One Love a brisk tale of arguably the most important time in Bob Marley’s creative life – and possibly life in general. This is the period where he wrote his most iconic songs, where he helped try to bring the world together as best he could and where a lot of his relationships culminated for better or worse. While flawed and lacking that true emotional punch, One Love is visually captivating for the direction it does take, has a wonderful sound to it, and overall, it’s entertaining enough to watch greatly in part due to Ben-Adir’s work alone, as he’s brilliant as Marley and carries the film on his shoulders.
Overall Movie Score: 3/5
4K Blu-ray Video and Audio Review:
The film looks incredible, which does help give it a check in the “reasons to watch” list. The 2160p/Dolby Vision delivery shines on every front, with Jamaica looking warm and natural, London looking gloomy (not your fault London!) and the interior, studio and concert scenes all popping to life beautifully. The colours are vivid, the blacks are deep and the details in every scene help bring the viewer right into the moment alongside Marley. Just a really solid visual transfer for fans of the film to enjoy.
The audio side of things takes it up another notch to eleven, with a pristine Dolby Atmos track that surrounds you with Bob Marley musical love when the scene calls for it, but also various small lyrical and instrumental moments that are scattered throughout the film. Fans of the film will be overjoyed to know that it was given top treatment in the 4K process and will compete as best as a home viewing can compete with a theatrical presentation.
Special Features:
Becoming Bob Marley – This featurette is just over 7-minutes and sees Kingsley Ben-Adir talk about taking on the role, how he went into it and how he wanted to portray the music icon. We hear from various cast and crew about how hard it is to capture Bob and how well Ben-Adir did so, as well as the physical transformation that he went through to closer resemble the superstar. Most intriguing to me was the language, where he learned Patois, and honestly, they blew me away. I thought everyone was actually Jamaican while watching, as it’s a deep, unique language that I can’t imagine learning to the extent that they did while delivering it so naturally.
The Story: Bringing Bob Marley’s Story to Life – This is another seven-and-a-half-minute featurette that looks at how they wanted to tell the story in a more unorthodox way than usual biopics do. Sometimes you have to try things, and sometimes it pays off. I wouldn’t say they failed, as the movie still works, I just think that it lacks in areas that a more traditional approach would’ve properly dedicated time to.
The Cast – This feature comes in at just under 10-minutes and focuses on the various actors that played pivotal roles in one way or another on Bob’s journey, as well as what the actors brought to the roles.
On Location: Jamaica and England – This is an eight-and-a-half-minute featurette that focuses on shooting on location in both Jamacia and England and the challenges and bonuses of doing so.
The Band – This is a 10-minute feature that focuses on the musicians who worked on the film to help give it the authenticity they were after.
Extended and Deleted Scenes – There are 10-minutes of deleted and extended scenes for those interested in checking them out.
Paramount Pictures Presents Bob Marley: One Love. Directed by: Reinaldo Marcus Green. Written by: Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin. Starring: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Umi Myers, Anthony Welsh, Nia Ashi, Quan-Dajai Henriques. Running time: 107 Minutes. Rating: PG. Released on 4K Blu-ray: May 28, 2024.
About Brendan Campbell
