"The Trial Of The Chicago 7"

We have all been denied many of life's simple pleasures as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, and one of the things that I have missed, really missed, has been going to the movies.  You know, sitting in a theater and seeing something made specifically to be seen on a big screen with an audience in a darkened theater.

Well, we still have yet to venture back into the movie theaters, but this morning I had the pleasure of watching an honest-to-God-made-for-theatrical-release movie on Netflix.  What a pleasure, and what a movie!

Names like Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, Bobby Seale, and William Kunstler may have receded into the recesses of history for many of us, and may be completely meaningless for people under, say, 60 years of age.  If so, then you really should watch "The Trial of The Chicago 7", written and directed by Aaron Sorkin.  It serves as a history lesson (insofar as we should construe movies as "history"), and it is also a compelling and entertaining courtroom drama of a movie.

In the summer of 1968, various elements of the counter-couture of the era converged on the City of Chicago to protest the war in Viet Nam during the Democratic National Convention taking place in that city.  Clashes ensued with the Chicago Police and the Illinois National Guard, and even within the ranks of the protesters themselves.  Political motivations of the new Nixon Administration, spearheaded by a vengeful Attorney General John Mitchell, who, in time, would be proven to be a rather unlawful guy himself, resulted in federal conspiracy charges against eight defendants and a trial in federal court in Chicago that can charitably be described as a circus, and that a subsequent federal appeals court ruled to be a sham.  One of those defendants, Black Panther Bobby Seale, was eventually separated from the charges of that particular trial, hence the moniker of Chicago 7.

It is a fabulous cast that includes Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, and Jeremy Strong as Hoffman, Hayden, and Rubin.  Also great in the cast are Mark Rylance, as Kunstler, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Federal Prosecutor Richard Schultz, Frank Langella as the far from honorable Judge Julius Hoffman, and in a  brief appearance, Michael Keaton as former AG Ramsey Clark.  It is my understanding that "The Trial of the Chicago 7" has already appeared in a movie theater somewhere, which makes it eligible for the Academy Awards this year.  I have heard on some podcasts that there's some buzz to an acting nomination for Cohen and his depiction of Abbie Hoffman, and deservedly so, but, honestly, I could make a case for any number of the actors in this one, especially Redmayne, Langella, Rylance, and even Keaton for his very brief time on camera.   I would also venture that Sorkin is a cinch for a Best Screenplay nomination and maybe even a Best Director nod.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Seale, Strong as Rubin, 

John Carroll Lynch as David Dellinger, 

Redmayne as Hayden, Cohen as Hoffman, Keaton as Clark

I would like to say that this movie is purely a historical work, but when one sees the operation of the Justice Department in recent years, the movie is, sadly, an all too real example of the old adage that "those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it." 

Go to whatever device you use to steam via the Netflix Machine and watch this movie.  I haven't seen many 2020 movies this year for reasons alluded to above, but "The Trial of The Chicago 7" has jumped to #1 on my list of Favorites for the Year. 

It gets the full Four Stars from The Grandstander.