Miles Ahead (2015) [Blu-ray]
Biography | Drama | Music | Romance
Tagline: If you gonna tell a story, come with some attitude
In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis (Cheadle) virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic
pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and pain medications, his mind haunted by unsettling ghosts from the past.
A wily music reporter, Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor) worms his way into Davis' house and, over the next couple of days, the two men unwittingly embark on a wild and sometimes harrowing adventure to recover a stolen tape of the musician's latest
compositions. Davis' mercurial behavior is fueled by memories of his failed marriage to the talented and beautiful dancer Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). During their romance and subsequent marriage, Frances served as Davis' muse. It was during this
period that he released several of his signature recordings including the groundbreaking "Sketches of Spain" and "Someday My Prince Will Come."
The idyll however, was short lived. The eight-year marriage was marked by infidelity and abuse, and Frances was to flee for her own safety as Miles' mental and physical health deteriorated.
By the late '70s, plagued by years of regret and loss, Davis flirts with annihilation until he once again finds salvation in his art.
Storyline: An exploration of the life and music of Miles Davis.
Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, July 17, 2016 An unconventional, complicated man whose music was as elaborate as it was smooth deserves nothing less than a Biopic turned on its head. Veteran actor and first-time
feature film director Don Cheadle does just that -- with as much passion, verve, and gritty authenticity as he can muster -- in Miles Ahead. A nonlinear film that shifts between two stories -- a younger Davis in his prime of music and love and an
elder Davis long disappeared from the music scene who finds himself on a hectic adventure with a journalist -- Miles Ahead generates plenty of kinetic energy along the way, playing with a cooly crafted, robust, and intoxicatingly rich narrative
that explores the man with the music proving a driving complimentary storytelling mechanic. Cheadle's debut film behind the camera is well versed and smartly assembled, and he turns in what may be remembered as his defining performance on the screen.
Miles Davis (Don Cheadle), away from the music scene for several years, a recluse and reckless with his well-being, finds himself back in the game when a Rolling Stone journalist named Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor) comes knocking on his door. Their
burgeoning relationship, growing increasingly less hostile than when it began, sees them confronting record producers at Columbia -- Miles isn't afraid to wave a gun in their face, either; after all, he is Miles Davis -- and, eventually, engaged in
a dangerous game to retrieve a collection of Miles' unreleased works. The film also travels a bit deeper into the past for a look at Miles' life in music and love with his then-wife, Frances (Emayatzy Corinealdi).
Miles Ahead plays with a nearly perfect assemblage of passion project love and affection, advanced Biopic narrative construction, a deeply researched and richly nuanced lead performance, skilled technical craftsmanship, and music utilized as a
storytelling bedrock. Don Cheadle proves himself a preeminent artist in every shot, on- and off-camera alike. The film is a creative masterpiece, well off the beaten path by way of its refusal to follow in the footsteps of the cruder Biopic crowd but ever
confident and capable in exploring its own way of telling its own story. Even through its nonlinear progression, there's a graceful linear feel to the movie. Never jerky or unsure of its cadence, the film instead builds layers from both of its timeframes
and paints a thorough picture of the man as he was and is without the benefit of the easy-way-out cradle-to-grave structure. Indeed, Cheadle, along with Co-Writer Steven Baigelman, builds Davis' story with an energetic, momentum-based top layer that
drives and comes to define the more traditional static underpinnings that are the movie's substantive core about a musician in transition and a man in crisis.
With his transformative performance on the screen, Cheadle demonstrates a command of the character, a full embodiment across both of the film's timelines. His ability to inhabit both characters -- two takes on the same man -- define the performance beyond
the usual Biopic structure. Cheadle doesn't simply play on the physical characteristics -- the cleaner cut younger, full of music and love Miles and the older, scruffier, self-sabotaged, in-crisis Miles -- but finds the why, finds the soul.
Considering also the movie's tonal shifts, the performance becomes all the more praiseworthy. Cheadle's work is brilliant in all facets, the performance rising beyond the routine and the actor engaging himself, and his audience, in a fully inhabited
artistic endeavor that also extends to the music. The film's score is its lifeblood, a complimentary character that more than any performance, shot, scene, sequence, or structured narrative tool defines the film's ebbs and flows. Cheadle's eye and ear for
matching on-screen story with Davis' music is arguably the most critical, and beautiful, part of a fantastically composed and performed motion picture.
Miles Ahead is a masterpiece Biopic because it's not truly a Biopic, at least not in the conventional textbook sort of delivery the film employs. Cheadle proves himself a worthy Davis in a film that's uniquely assembled, with an unexpected tone of
grittiness meets playfulness meets serious drama meets a whole bunch of other little bits all around a stunningly detailed and well-versed duel portrait of one of music's giants. Supported by a terrific soundtrack that's as much a part of the movie's DNA
as any other aspect, Miles Ahead surges ahead as one of the great stories of a real-life musician out there. Sony's Blu-ray delivers perfect video, strong audio, and a few high quality supplements. Highly recommended.
[CSW] -2.3- I agree with this reviewer: What a disappointment and what a mess. The more you know about Miles Davis the less you will like this movie. That about says it all. The screenplay is ludicrous and cartoonish. The presence of the
fictional Ewan McGregor character makes no sense and turns the movie into a cross between a bad version of "48 Hours" and a bad version of "Miami Vice." If this movie was about some fictional black doper jazz musician and an equally fictional
untrustworthy white reporter, everyone would be able to see what a failure it is as a film. But because the black jazz musician is named "Miles Davis" people think the film has some kind of import or truth. It doesn't. The only believable parts concern
Miles' relationship with his first wife Frances Taylor (ably played by Emayatzi Corinealdi"). When the film flashes back to those scenes it actually seems to be taking place in this universe. However, the film spends way too much time in a kind of Coen
Brothers-ish world that is trying to be funny, hip, drug-addled and violent and failing terribly. I like Don Cheadle as an actor and he does a great job of impersonating Miles here but he has no skill as a screenwriter or director and that's what sinks
this film in the end. Lots of walkouts during the screening I viewed and I could hardly wait myself for this interminable bullcrap to end. Quite a disservice to Miles who remains just as much of a distant icon after viewing this movie as before it.
[V5.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.
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