Bob Marley The Legend: No, everything won’t be okay…

To the figure of Bob Marley She got there, after her premature death, at the age of 36, through several good documentaries. Framed in the wave of musician biopics (from Freddie Mercury to Elton John and Elvis Presley) Bob Marley: The Legend It differs from the other three for several reasons.

One is the solemnity with which it is told. OK, it’s an official biography, because besides Brad Pitt as a producer, his son Ziggy and his widow Rita are also behind the project. Since it is an authorized biography, what happens with official films happens: the good side is shown, the sins are hidden and if there is an interpreter suited to the character, so much the better.

Reinaldo Marcus Green had done another much better biography, King Richard: A winning family, the film for which Will Smith won the Oscar. Either that movie was a mirage, or the Bob Marley movie is a misstep by the director.

There’s nothing to complain about Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley: he moves, jumps and dances around the stage with surprising familiarity with the musician. We don’t know if he sings, because the versions seem to be sung by the reggae superstar, and by the actor, who had already been Malcolm One night in Miamiand Barack Obama in a miniseries, is neither bad nor tone-deaf, whether he sings or not.

The problem is that the script reduces everything to a short period of time, from 1976 to 1978, but doesn’t know how to squeeze the juice out of the story. Thus began the preparatory rehearsals for the recording of Exodusthat the magazine time considered the best album of the 20th century, don’t count for much, and meetings with managers and music businessmen, even less. And the Jamaican’s few questions never leave him offside.

There’s a lot of blah blah blah, a lot of speeches and clichés. Luckily there is music – except when the story is destined to be told with song lyrics… -.

Marley lived in turbulent Jamaica, which in 1976 faced political parties and almost led to a civil war. While this was happening, Marley was organizing a peace concert, Smile Jamaica. And the member of the Rastafari movement suffered an attack that almost cost him his life.

For those who don’t know or are familiar with “El Capi”, the question posed to the protagonist may seem strange (“Is it true that he smokes half a kilo of weed a day?”). Marley and the Wailers, his band at the time, smoked cigarettes or a pipe, but in the film everything happens in the background, it has no implications on what will happen.

“What is reggae?”

There are tours through European countries, and many high-sounding phrases, such as “What is reggae?”, are asked in Paris. “It is the music of the people, the conscience of the people uniting”). Uninterested in money, he will say that for the tour in Africa “as long as we have a hotel, good sound and the musicians pay”, that’s enough for him.

Of course, Don Taylor, the manager, will get beaten up by Bob when he finds out that he was overcharging the tour promoter and keeping it for himself.

To paraphrase one of Marley’s themes, the one that says there’s no need to worry, that everything will be fine… Well, in this biopic, not everything is fine.

“Bob Marley, the legend”

Musical biography. United States, 2024. Original title: “Bob Marley: a love”. 104′, SAM 13. From: Reinaldo Marcus Green. With: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Umi Myers. Rooms: Hoyts Dot and Abasto, Cinemark Palermo, Cinépolis Recoleta and Houssay, Showcase Belgrano and Norcenter.