The Trial of the Chicago 7

Based on true events, The Trial of the Chicago 7 follows a group of anti-Vietnam war protestors, including Sacha Baron Cohen’s Abbie Hoffman and Eddie Redmayne’s Tom Hayden, as they’re forced to defend themselves after being charged with, among other things, conspiracy and crossing state lines to incite a riot. Filmmaker Aaron Sorkin, working from his own screenplay, delivers a mostly compelling drama that benefits from its raft of above-average performances, as the movie boasts often spellbinding work from a cast that includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Rylance, and Michael Keaton – although it remains clear that Baron Cohen’s superb work as the charming, rabble-rousing Hoffman stands as an ongoing highlight within the proceedings. And although Sorkin isn’t, generally speaking, able to develop the multitude of characters beyond their most superficial attributes, The Trial of the Chicago 7 progresses into an increasingly absorbing midsection that’s been suffused with a number of distinctly electrifying sequences and stretches, including a riveting scene wherein Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Bobby Seale is bound and gagged in the courtroom, and the movie undoubtedly builds towards a completely captivating and unexpectedly moving finale that ensures it concludes on an exceedingly positive note – which does, in the end, cement the picture’s place as a conventional yet predominantly engrossing true-life tale.

***1/2 out of ****