Tropic Sprockets / Marshall

By Ian Brockway

Chadwick Boseman stars in “Marshall,” a gutsy and informative look at one of Thurgood Marshall’s cases before he became the 96th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The film, directed by Reginald Hudlin, has a crisp style and fully captures the period of the 1940s when black people were segregated, stripped of human rights and often humiliated or murdered. Though the film does not shy away from horror, it is not self-conscious or righteous. It presents events as they were without pretension or overdone pathos.

This is simply Thurgood as a young man.

Marshall is a lawyer who handles cases for the NAACP. In 1940, he is given the case of Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), unfairly accused of raping a wealthy white woman (Kate Hudson). To help him on the case, he manages to enlist the weary but direct Sam Friedman (Josh Gad).

The film has terrific touches. In one scene, Marshall is sitting at a bar and is suddenly threatened by two violent men. Seeing he has no recourse, Marshall fights back delivering several defensive punches, proving he is a real life superhero. Sadly because of bigotry, Marshall has to be a step ahead of every mortal being. Thurgood the man is assured without being cocky and wise without being detached.

Though the film does have its dramatic pauses and moments of a-ha predictability at times, it is stirring and engaging throughout. Josh Gad does well in one of his first dramatic roles, having good repartee with Boseman, and though Gad again plays someone self-deprecating and angst ridden, he refrains from comedy.

The film is superb in showing racial anxiety, fear and sadness in the air and it is almost on the level of a suspense film. Stylistically, the film most closely resembles the 1995 neo-noir film “Devil in A Blue Dress,” directed by Carl Franklin. Thurgood Marshall and his clients are under suspicion just for being human.

There are also fine touches showing Langston Hughes (Jessie Smollett) and Zora Neale Hurston (the singer Chilli) These illustrative flashes are just enough to give us a full portrait of Thurgood, the young man, an electric person brimming with force and fight.

“Marshall” is an excellent movie that is sober without being sorrowful. It shows us the real person of Thurgood Marshall, who made the best of himself, ultimately, not because he was expected to but because he was compelled. Write Ian at [email protected]