Even by the frequently low standards of the musician biopic genre, the box-ticking Bob Marley: One Love, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard), seems a particularly uninspired and deferential plod around the life and legacy of the Jamaican reggae star.
The picture covers a period that spans from 1976, when political unrest in Jamaica boiled over and Marley narrowly survived an attempt on his life, through his time based in punk-era London where he recorded the seminal album Exodus, to his return to Jamaica in 1978 for the One Love peace concert. Cursory flashbacks – almost subliminal snippets of childhood trauma; more substantial glimpses of Marley as a young musician – disrupt the flow of the film and feel too formulaic to add much to our understanding of the man he became.
In the lead role, British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir captures the physicality of Bob Marley – the leonine grace and charisma; the weird spasmodic dance (the singing voice, however, is mainly Marley’s own) – but he’s let down by a screenplay that fails to give much insight into who Marley was as a person. He’s a thumbnail sketch character, with barely more substance than the billowing clouds of ganja smoke that constantly fill the frame. As Marley’s wife, Rita, Lashana Lynch is saddled with a similarly underwritten role, but somehow she manages to flesh out Rita with a satisfyingly complex performance. What becomes painfully clear is the fact that Bob Marley deserves a better biopic. Still, Lynch’s magnetic presence, and a heartstopping rendition of Redemption Song, almost justify the price of admission.
