The Trial of The Chicago Seven

This year it is going to be even more difficult to watch the award nominees than usual even though the Oscars have been delayed until the end of April and you would have thought more of the films would be available on streaming.

So far I have only managed to track down one nominee, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of The Chicago Seven, which was offered free on YouTube by Netflix for a limited period so that they were eligible to be nominated.

This courtroom drama covers the seven who were arrested for allegedly organising violence at the anti-Vietnam War protests at 1968 Democratic National Convention where Vietnam apologist Hubert Humphrey was set to be named the Democrats' candidate for President. These were disparate group of characters, who mostly didn’t know each other, who were charged with conspiracy and incitement to riot.

It was widely accepted at the time that the Chicago police had initiated the violence, a view backed up by attorney general, Ramsay Clark. However when Clark was replaced by John Mitchell, Mitchell set out to prove otherwise.

 

All the accused claimed to be peaceful protesters. These included students Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp) along with David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), who was a member of a pacifist society.

On the other hand, Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) were well up for a bit of violence although still protested their innocence. While the two others occused, Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins) and John Froines (Danny Flaherty), seemed to have absolutely no idea why they were there. 

There was also an eighth man on trial, Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) of the notorious Black Panther party. Seale was denied the right to proper representation and his case was eventually declared a mistrial but not before he was, among other things, shackled and gagged, at the behest of the judge. 

In court, lawyer William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) fought for the men, struggling both in court and behind the scenes to hold them together as a united front in a trial that lasted five and a half months.

 

The film, of such a politically motivated trial, feels timely with both America and the UK currently struggling with culture wars and the question of just what actually constitutes freedom of speech these days.

Five of the men were eventually found guilty of inciting a riot and all seven, plus their lawyer and Seale, were sentenced to prison on multiple counts of contempt of court. All charges were reversed on appeal.

It’s an interesting and informative film but not one I’d like to see trouble the Oscars too much.

Molly's Game

Molly’s Game is a true story based on the autobiography of Molly Bloom who ran high stakes poker games in Los Angeles and New York before finding herself subject to an FBI investigation, standing accused of illegal gambling and colluding with organised crime gangs.

The film opens with Bloom (Jessica Chastain) trying to convince a lawyer, Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba), to take on her case. We then see the rest of the story through flashbacks.

Bloom was a decent freestyle mogul skier, albeit pushed by her overbearing father (Kevin Costner), who didn’t quite make the Olympic team for Salt Lake City in 2002. She ends up severely injured which terminates her skiing career. However her competitive instinct serves her well in later life.

She skips law school to becomes a waitress at a club in Los Angeles where she meets Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong), a real estate developer and she becomes his personal assistant. He has a side-job running underground poker games and he soon involves her in that.

Molly quickly learns how to appeal to the players, whom include many famous and wealthy individuals including film stars, to gain tips. This include the terribly un-PC approach of the ever lowering of the necklines and lifting of the hemlines of her dresses, until you think they’re going to meet in middle. As a career move it works and she runs rings around all of the men but she is smart too.

Her boss feels threatened by her popularity with the players and fires her but Bloom is

now well known enough to strike out on her own, which she does and steal Dean Keith’s players from him.

It all goes well until a few of her players start to run up unmanageable debts and then when she falls out with her number one player, known as Player X (Michael Cera), she is sidelined. However, instead of giving up she moves to New York to set up a new game.

Despite more success, she is again unable to cope with the players who cannot pay and she starts illegally taking a percentage of the pot to cover her losses. The mafia kindly offer to ‘help out’ with the bad payers and after she declines she is beaten up in her home. Then when one of her players is charged with running a Ponzi scheme everything begins to collapses and Molly herself becomes under investigation. 

I do love a real story and this is a good one, entertaining and well told. It cracks along at a speedy pace and boasts a marvellous performance from Chastain. She is phenomenal and she owns this film as much as Bloom herself owned the poker game. Highly recommended.