I have to start giving Chadwick Boseman more credit. It’s really not easy portraying legends, with everyone imprinting their reverence, hope, and dreams onto you. Jackie Robinson. James Brown (Boseman’s best performance to date)! And now Thurgood Marshall!?!? It appears Mr. Boseman owns the “African American pioneer” corner of the movie market, and we’re all the better for it. Boseman is now 3/3 on disappearing into an iconic figure and doing enough for most people to be satisfied.
Marshall explores our first African-American supreme court justice (played by Boseman) through one of the cases that explores everything the man was about. Thurgood is sent to a small town in Connecticut by the NAACP to help defend Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown). Spell is accused of raping and attempting to murder a white woman Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson). Marshall is sorely needed: Spell’s lawyer Sam Friedman (Josh Gad) has zero trial experience going up against a seasoned trial lawyer (Dan Stevens). However, Marshall is met with hostility by the judge (James Cromwell), limiting Thurgood’s ability to influence the proceedings. So Friedman and Marshall form an uneasy alliance to try to save what they believe to be an innocent man.
I am fully on board with this new trend in racial progress movies in the United States: black people using their brains to get ahead and game the system. Hidden Figures will be shown in high school classes for the next generation for specifically that reason. Marshall is specifically a showcase of how clever Thurgood Marshall was at obtaining the verdict he wants, in every part of a trial. At jury selection, Marshall notices key subtle movements that would indicate a juror would be sympathetic and open-minded. During the trial, Marshall notices inconsistencies in the prosecuting witness, as easily identifies this as a trap that would lead to a line of questioning that would paint the defense in a poor light. In Mr. Spell’s faults, Marshall suggests bringing them up in the defense’s line of questioning to eliminate any power the prosecution would bring to those faults. Marshall finally instructs Friedman to not demonize Mrs. Strubing since Thurgood’s long game is not to prove Mr. Spell innocent, but to tell a very tragic story of Eleanor Strubing that Joseph Spell got caught in, and that the prosecution’s story has enough reasonable doubt that the rape doesn’t quite fit into the story. It’s a very complicated long game that only a smart man could weave, proving just how amazing Marshall is. The audience can then understand how this guy pioneered the legendary Brown v. Board of Education defense to end school segregation, exactly what a good biopic should do.
Another fun, progressive move the movie Marshall makes is the inversion of the “movie teacher.” Let me explain. One of the big tropes in past movies about race is that there is usually a woke white person that helps the black person get their story told (the Help is a great example of this). Marshall flips this: Thurgood does all the behind the scenes string pulling to help the over-his-head Friedman perform his defense. Marshall is the smartest man in the room at all times, and even when in the presence of the defense, Marshall commands the screen and everyone shuts up when he talks (a testament to how well Boseman figured out who Thurgood Marshall is). Heck, even when Friedman and Marshall are jumped, Marshall is ready for a fight while Friedman isn’t ready. While others might question Marshall and his defense of Joseph Spell and his presence in the town, absolutely NO ONE questions how smart Thurgood is; a move I wish more movies would start using.
Even though Marshall is another by the numbers “era of progress” biopic, it’s one of the good ones. It’s funny, clever, and profiles a great person and makes the audience understand why they are great. One question though: does anyone else find it funny that after playing Thurgood Marshall, Chadwick Boseman is going to join the Black Panthers? Or is that just me?