Sacha Baron Cohen steals the show in Aaron Sorkin’s mostly entertaining, occasionally cheesy, totally timely take on a notorious US trial.
Cohen is self-styled prankster and anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman who — along with other left-leaning politicos, including Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) — is accused of inciting a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Cohen plays Hoffman as a droll cross between Krusty the Clown, Bart Simpson and Milhouse Van Houten. You can see why Hayden views him as a charlatan and why Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) hangs on his every word.
Doubts have been raised about Cohen’s Massachusetts/California accent. I’m no expert but I found everything about the performance enchanting. The Academy Awards can be a bit of a trial; here’s hoping Cohen gets nominated in the best supporting actor category and decides to shake things up on the night.
Of course Sorkin, being Sorkin, wants to make everyone likeable. So from the get-go the federal government’s prosecuting attorney, Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is a decent sort who knows this case is crooked. Turning him into a pussy cat (the real Schultz was less cuddly) drains the proceedings of tension.
More successful is a sequence which shows how Seale’s eloquent, visionary friend Fred Hampton (Kelvin Harrison Jr) was executed by the state. Fun and games and murder. When Sorkin sticks to the facts, he’s in a class of his own.
Netflix
