Stubs - The Trial of the Chicago 7

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) Starring: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Daniel Flaherty, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, John Carroll Lynch, Eddie Redmayne, Noah Robbins, Mark Rylance, Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong. Directed by Aaron Sorkin. Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Produced by Stuart M. Besser, Matt Jackson, Marc Platt, Tyler Thompson. Run Time: 130 minutes. Color. USA Political, Historical, Drama.

This has been a year like no other when it comes to films in theaters. The bottom line is that there hasn’t been any worth risking one’s life to see. Not that there haven’t been good movies released but 2020 will be remembered as the year when a big release would go straight to streaming more often than not. Case in point, The Trial of the Chicago 7. Originally conceived as a theatrical release with none other than Steven Spielberg at the helm, Paramount Pictures would sell all distribution rights to Netflix when a profitable theatrical release seemed out of the question (it did get a short theatrical release before disappearing behind Netflix's paywall). Say what you will but putting a film on a streaming service does limit who can see the film, especially since downstream release windows are pretty much broken.

As mentioned above, Spielberg wanted to make a film about the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention and had brought in Sorkin to write the script. This was not something Sorkin was familiar with and in a Vanity Fair interview stated that "I left not knowing what the hell he was talking about."

That, of course, didn’t stop Sorkin from writing the script but the focus was less on the riots than on the trial of those accused of inciting them, commonly called the Chicago 7, even though eight men were initially accused.

William Kunstler (Mark Rylance), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), and Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) during the trial.

This is basically a courtroom drama though and provides a look at the two Americas that existed at the time, and in some form or the other still exist today. On the one hand, there were left-leaning anti-Vietnam war protesters from different groups: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led by Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp); the Youth International Party (Yippies) led by Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong); and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) led by David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch). Throw in Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) of the Black Panthers to scare the jury. With the exception of Seale, they are represented by William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) and Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman).

On the other side are John N. Mitchell (John Doman), United States Attorney General; Judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella); Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), assistant federal prosecutor; and Tom Foran (J.C. MacKenzie).

To a certain degree the seven, including Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins) and John Froines (Daniel Flaherty), helped to bring the protesters to Chicago in the first place. While they may have been full of bravado, they weren’t really violent until confronted by the Chicago police, who had no intentions of fostering a peaceful demonstration.

The government, in turn, looked at the police as the good guys and the demonstrators as bad, blaming them for the violence that happened outside the Democratic Convention, even though, as the film depicts, the rioting actually never reached the Convention.

While the dialogue is well-written it is hard to know how much of the courtroom banter was from the actual transcripts or from the mind of Sorkin. I would tend to give the benefit to the transcripts in this case. Sorkin’s touch would come in the non-court room discussions and re-enactments to the demonstrations.

But it is the acting that really sells the film. Sacha Baron Cohen shows that he can really act when he allows himself to. His performance here is more serious but Hoffman is depicted with comedic touches that allow Cohen to be serious but also funny.

Jerry Rubin is depicted by Jeremy Strong as a naïve stoner radical who knows how to make Molotov cocktails but is easily fooled by an undercover agent, Daphne O'Connor (Caitlin FitzGerald).

Eddie Redmayne, who seems to be making a living playing historical people, plays Tom Hayden as a somewhat level-headed radical. Hayden is depicted as being more politically savvy than the others, something that would be proven true as Hayden would run successfully several times to the California Assembly and California Senate years later.

Mark Rylance depicts Kuntzler as a manager trying to keep his rather unruly clients in line while trying to deal with a politically motivated judge and a system rigged against them.

Frank Langella plays Judge Hoffman.

Frank Langella plays Judge Hoffman, who obviously treated the seven as if they were guilty and Bobby Seale as if he were a little less than human.

Richard Schultz, the prosecutor, is fleshed out by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, giving the audience the impression that he was both a good attorney but also a man with a conscience. All along he seems to balance his personal opinions with the duty he is given.

All of them do a great job of bringing these characters to life, adding depth to people who had only been names on pages of newspapers and history books. For that, I give credit to both the actors and to the director.

Along the way, you learn something about the Chicago riot and its participants that still resonates today. The country still has issues with racial equality in the judicial system and there are always people on one side who when they can’t win on the merits, or the facts, will resort to violence to keep those they disagree with down. But since this is a movie, some of the details are changed or compressed and the end of the trial, though not the outcome, is changed for dramatic effect.

With awards season just around the corner, it seems pretty certain that The Trial of the Chicago 7 will be nominated for at least acting, directing, writing, and quite possibly best picture. Those nominations would seem to be justified, even if this film never plays in a theater.