Miles Ahead

Miles just called and wanted the finale to be the finale. Please Advise.

The whole plot about the lost tape is a clunking mess, should have been entirely about an irate coked up Miles Davis calling radio stations to berate them for not playing Bitches Brew.

Don Cheadle does a great job in the lead role. Ewan McGregor is also very good in this film. The script is original and it is different than your typical biopic film. Overall I would recommend this film.

The film picks up steam whenever Cheadle shows us Davis doing what he does best, making "social music" (he hates the word jazz). A scene of Davis working with musicians on songs from his 1960 album Sketches of Spain crackles with excitement you don't feel when the film descends into soap opera and 1970's era action mayhem. You can feel Cheadle's desire to do Davis proud by not doing anything boilerplate. It's a near miss, but you can't help applauding the passion behind it.

Viewed October 8, 2016. I see where Don Cheadle was coming from: an artist as ruthless and uncompromising as Miles Davis deserves a film that's willing to break just as many rules. I love it in theory, but in execution, this guns-blazing story ends up feeling awfully silly when all is said and done. Watching a coked out Miles Davis point guns at people and call them motherfuckers is honestly only fun for a few short minutes, Cheadle's relentless commitment be damned.

Excellent actiing performances simply weren't sufficient to hold my interest in this film. Somehow, the story just seemed lacking, as though someone just to adequately add enough detail to the script to really bring Miles Davis to life as a living and breathing person. Accordingly, I was just left with a "meh" feeling after finishing this movie.

Things I enjoyed most about this movie: Cheadle's impression of Davis, and the scene cuts. It was more of a highlight reel of all the crazy things Miles Davis did in his late career narrowed down to a couple of days with some flashbacks. Another music biopic with too much focus on the veneer of the tortured genius without exploring what really made him tick.

Not until the second half does it begin to distance itself from the usual biopic ingredients. Cheadle has claimed that everything in this film is true, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with Miles' life will realize that it's not literal truth, but rather a more philosophical sort of truth that is being conveyed here.

Don Cheadle does a great Diana Ross.

If you're looking for a standard, cradle to grave biopic about Miles Davis, look somewhere else, because this ain't it. I respect this, even if I didn't enjoy 100% of the movie. The non-linear storytelling is nice, but ends up being a little limited in scope. Cheadle is great in the lead role, and did a fantastic job directing, too. There are some good moments, and some silly ones, and the music featured throughout is great, of course. I don't know if I'd recommend it to non-Davis fans

Don Cheadle finds Miles Davis' groove! The rest should have grooved harder....

Quite good with great performances from Don and Ewan.

Episodes from the life of Miles Davis (Don Cheadle), framed by the events of a busy weekend wherein he tangles with a reporter (Ewan McGregor) and his label, eager to release his new material whether he's ready or not. Supposedly less a straightforward biopic and more a fantasia on the man and his world, it doesn't come off too smoothly, but Cheadle, as both star and director, has energy to burn, and for jazz devotees it's at least worth a viewing.

While Miles Ahead has some interesting interplay between its music and editing, there's too much missing here for it to genuinely connect with its audience. Davis experts may find it very enriching, but casual fans like me are likely to feel left out of the loop.

Miles Ahead doesn't give much context on how the counterculture & Black Power times influenced Miles, or explain his lasting impact on today's culture. It also trips with some stereotypical Hollywood biopic moments (domestic issues, music management, invented characters). Yet the jazz fusion album form makes it a cool flick. Cheadle & McGregor are great together, but deserve a better story. I'd recommend a couple of Miles documentaries first, but it still gets a marginal recommendation.