FILM REVIEW OF ''MARSHALL" (2017)

Before he played the lead in Marvel Studios’ superhero sage “Black Panther,” actor Chadwick Boseman played a genuine African-American hero in “Boomerang” director Reginald Hudlin’s “Marshall,” a sterling biographical courtroom yarn about civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall.  As it turns out, this is the same individual who argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court and then later donned the robes as the first African-American to sit on the highest federal court of the United States.  It doesn’t hurt matters that seasoned civil rights advocate Michael Koskoff and his son Jacob penned the screenplay.  Interestingly, the elder Koskoff still serves as an attorney in Connecticut, where the trial took place in 1941, so he would know something about the hurdles that Marshall had to negotiate. At this point in his life, Marshall worked as the sole legal counsel for the NAACP, and his NAACP superior Walter White (Roger Guenveur Smith of “Eve’s Bayou”) dispatches him to all parts of the country to defend poor African-Americans who cannot afford an attorney.  

“Marshall” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) depicts the eponymous character as a sharp, savvy, sartorially elegant attorney who refuses to be intimidated by anybody.  Boseman has a field day incarnating this historical personage.  Neither Hudlin nor the Koskoffs reveal a great deal about Thurgood Marshall beyond his dedication to the rights of African-Americans in a legal system skewered heavily against them.  Indeed, we do learn about the problems that Marshall and his wife Vivien "Buster" Burey (Keesha Sharp of “Malibu's Most Wanted”) encountered in their repeated but futile efforts to get pregnant.  Eventually, she does have a baby.  Nevertheless, Hudlin and the Koskoffs don’t let Marshall’s own life history interfere with the trial at hand.  Mind you, “Marshall” clocks in two minutes short of two hours, but Hudlin doesn’t malinger.  The trial in question takes place in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The authorities have arrested a middle-aged, African-American chauffeur, Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown of “Brown Sugar”), for allegedly raping an affluent Greenwich socialite, Mrs. Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson of “Deepwater Horizon”), and then throwing her into a reservoir late one evening.  According to Koskoff, when the press broke the story, one newspaper touted it as “the sex trial of the century.” When Marshall visits Spell in his jail cell, the attorney explains that the NAACP represents only innocent blacks. Spell assures Marshall that he did not rape Strubing.  Furthermore, he has an alibi for his whereabouts when the crime occurred, and the witness in question turns out to be a white policeman. 

As the case unfolds, Marshall realizes that he lacks the appropriate credentials to practice law in Connecticut, so he finds a gullible but willing Jewish insurance attorney, Sam Friedman (Josh Gad of “Pixels”), to help him represent Spell.  Friedman constantly has second thoughts about the trial and the dire publicity that may irreparably damage his budding civil practice.  Nevertheless, he agrees to serve as Spell’s mouthpiece.  Meantime, the abrasive Judge Foster (James Cromwell of “L.A. Confidential”) refuses to let Marshall utter a syllable during the trial and threatens to hold him in contempt if he does.  

Throughout the trial, Marshall must coach Friedman because the latter hasn’t argued a criminal case.  If these two strikes against our sympathetic, but snappy hero aren’t enough, Marshall discovers about half-way through the case that Spell has been lying to them.  Indeed, Spell didn’t rape Strubing!  Instead, he had intimate consensual relations with her, because her abusive, bad-tempered husband, John Strubing (Jeremy Bobb of “Boy Wonder”), often left her alone at night.  Naturally, Friedman struggles to improvise, but he falls into too many traps laid by prosecuting attorney Loren Willis (Dan Stevens of “The Guest”), who is supremely confident that he will triumph in the end with a conviction. Of course, the racist citizens of Bridgeport aren’t happy with both Marshall and Friedman, and they go after them with fists.  Friedman suffers the worst, getting beaten to his knees, and walking away with minor facial scars.  Marshall grins at him and points out that the local press lumped him with Marshall as a crusading NAACP lawyer.

“Marshall” qualifies as a well-made but routine courtroom drama bolstered by terrific performances and historical accuracy.