‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ Review

It is hard to not address the elephant in the room while watching this new film from writer/director Aaron Sorkin. The Trial of the Chicago 7 comes at a similar time to which the film takes place as riots and political unrest surrounds every news network across the country. The film has plenty to say about the late 60’s to early 70’s in which the film took place, but it does not shy away from pointing out the similarities between those times and present day.

Plot

The Trial of the Chicago 7 details the court case of the “Chicago 7,” a group of seven that represented different groups of anti-Vietnam war activists who each had their own differing views on the right ways to protest and how to get their message across. The group is accused by the federal government of conspiracy to incite a riot and the film details the actions that transpired during the court case and during the protests.

Fantastic writing and performances

The strength of the movie to no one’s surprise is its script. Sorkin has constructed a masterful script that not only creates a riveting courtroom drama that is hard to stop watching, but he still manages to flesh out most of the characters. 

The rapid back-and-forth dialogue truly demands your attention and you don’t want to miss anything. Sorkin manages to deliver exposition in a way that never feels forced or non-essential to the plot.

There are two members of the Chicago 7 who don’t get much to do, but the others are all likable, even if somewhat frustrating at times. The film has an all-star cast which includes Eddie Redmayne, Michael Keaton, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Mark Rylance. 

Rylance, Cohen, and Redmayne were given the most to do and truly delivered. If anyone is going to get nominated for this movie, it will probably be one of those three, but the performances were fantastic across the board.

Redmayne plays Tom Hayden who wants to carry out his activism in a more civil manner, while Cohen plays Abbie Hoffman who represents the hippie spirit of the 60s. Their conversations are fascinating as while they both have the same goal, they are complete opposites on how they want to achieve their goal.

Frank Langella also has a prominent role as the extremely frustrating judge. It is unclear how much of the film is accurate, but if the judge’s behavior and decisions were accurate, I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for the defendants and their attorney’s.

Sorkin is also a great director

While the film is about riots, it is not too graphic. It is more about the court case than it is about the exact details of the riots. However, Sorkin does utilize a technique where he will have one character answering questions about what happened while cutting back to the actual events, giving the movie more excitement by visualizing the scenes instead of having characters just tell the audience about them. 

It is hard to make a court case intriguing but Sorkin seems to have perfected how to do it with A Few Good Men and now this.

The film is about 2 hours and 10 minutes, however, it could have been longer. The trial gets cut short at the end to get to the end but there was a lot still left on the table. Maybe it was to just cut the movie at a decent runtime, but I do wish more details were wrapped up. I did like how the movie ends, even if it is a bit Hollywood.

Final verdict

Overall, The Trail of the Chicago 7 is one of the best movies of the year (even if it is a rather limited year). It is an endlessly intriguing film that I never wanted to stop watching. If you are a fan of Sorkin’s other works, then you’ll enjoy this one as well. It’s too bad I can’t go see it in the theater, but watching it on Netflix on my home TV wasn’t too bad.

Final score: 4.5/5