Trial of the Chicago Seven is a new Netflix film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin and concerns the trail of seven people in Chicago in 1968 regarding the events of that years Democratic National Convention but whether they believe it will be a fair trial Is a whole other question.
Trial of the Chicago Seven is well written by Mr Sorkin and well performed but as a movie I mainly thought it was perfectly fine if nothing spectacular for me but before I delve into that point I want to delve more into my first 2 points.
The first of those is Mr Sorkin’s script and like his other writing over the years be it The Social Network or the West Wing TV series or a Few Good Men it sticks in your head and you never feel bored when listening to his dialogue being performed.
And Mr Sorkin certainly has assembled a great cast of actors to perform that dialogue as you have Eddie Redmayne, Mark Rylance, Frank Langella, Sacha Baron Cohen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt among others and they all do very well in their roles Mr Redmaybe and Mr Cohen in particular are standouts in their roles given how mixed I’ve felt about their work prior to this movie.
But to come back to my last point about the movie being perfectly fine I think that would have to come down to Sorkin’s directing work, it isn’t bad per se but there are a lot of moments mainly in the editing where it feels scattershot in terms of following the events that led up to the trial and those that were left out to some extent and I wish someone like Rob Reiner had directed this movie instead as someone of his skill at making this kind of movie could’ve streamlined this a little bit and brought into a tighter and sharper focus and it might have been more memorable for me.
And so that was Trial of the Chicago Seven and it’s a perfectly fine movie, well made and well performed but it wasn’t one that really stood out for me all that much in a way that I want to recommend it widely, 3 out of 5.
