Unfortunately Don Cheadle, despite displaying savvy acting chops in playing the ever irascible Miles Davis, does a disservice to one of the 20th century’s leading jazz musicians. In Miles Ahead, which Cheadle directed and co-wrote, unmoored diversions plague what amounts to more of a made-up buddy/heist picture than a serious look at a complex man.
In his hope to get about as far away from boilerplate biopic riffs as possible, Cheadle often goes out of tune. There’s guns, drug deals, a freaking car chase, and even a made up felony here, but where is the desired backdrop demonstrating Davis’ musical mastery, especially his ability to constantly change musical directions while maintaining an uncanny quality?
Flashback references to his Blue Note-era bop days are flimsy, consisting of how he met his first wife, Frances Davis (Emayatzy Corinealdi) and his unfortunate harassment by police outside New York’s legendary Birdland nightclub. The best musical passage is at the end of the film, when we’re treated to a present-day band that includes septuagenarians Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. The only historic musical associate who receives much screen time is Gil Evans, who’s portrayed leading a recording session for the hardly groundbreaking Porgy and Bess album.
The main thrust of Miles Ahead is trying to get inside Davis’ angry head during a period in the late 1970s when he essentially went AWOL from the music business after suffering from degenerative hip disease and holed himself up in his Upper West Side New York City apartment. We encounter Ewan McGregor as a fabricated ostensible Rolling Stone journalist desperately trying to get an interview with Davis, and even more enthusiastically trying to steal a long-awaited demo tape from him. Then, after Davis pulls out a gun inside his record company’s office in pursuit of what he perceives to be $20,000 they owe him, we’re suddenly on our way to Rush Hour-land. I was hoping for more of a Clint Eastwood’s Bird scope here rather than an awkward mix of gangsta and watered down jazz sequences.
It’s somewhat of a shame since Cheadle’s acting is often frighteningly good. Due to his intensity, we do get it that Miles was a bona fide crazy son-of-a-bitch, and certainly a self-centered one, but it’s what the film leaves out that screams for attention. Miles Davis was also pretty much a genius, and while hagiography was certainly not called for here, a little more respect certainly would have been nice.