misses the mark

Rating: 4/10 (25 November 2018)

Ernest but flat. Inter-racial friendships have been a topic in American films for over 50 years. The emotions between the two main characters here came across as forced and inauthentic. Why choose the Danish-American Viggo Mortensen to play an Italian-American from the Bronx? His portrait was an amateurish embarrassment. Almost grotesque, but supposed to get laughs. And Ali's character, Don Shirley, does things down South that would most likely get him killed---I doubt the incidents in the movie truthfully matched the real-life happenings. It looked like a movie about Americans that was made by Canadians. Full of false notes, with no real flavor.
This movie wasn't even a crowd-pleaser where I saw it (NYC). Don't expect Tony to beat-up every racist we see, Buford Pusser style. Just lame confrontations that didn't satisfy or really address the racial problems in a believable way. So here's one lone knock on a movie that got a mystifying amount of good reviews.