Oh look, another musical biopic. This one is (obviously) about Bob Marley, a musician whose work I am not overly familiar with and whose life I know next to nothing about. So, if nothing else, I might learn something about Marley and his music. Besides, after a long, extended weekend of grading papers while my girlfriend was too sick to go out, I needed to get out and see something that wasn’t, you know, Madame Web. Bob Marley: One Love would seem to fit that bill.
Though on one quick note, there were an awful lot of people whose last name was “Marley” listed in the credits, particularly as producers. So, keep that in mind if you’re expecting a “warts and all” portrayal.
The movie opens with text explaining that, in 1976, the island nation of Jamaica was gearing up for a big election where there was concern over violence between the two political parties and the gangs that sided with one party or another, a sentence that sounded like it might be a little too relevant to some folks in the United States in 2024. Regardless, Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir) has decided to have a free, nonpartisan concert to promote peace and hopefully avoid civil war. However, someone has a problem with this as gunmen attack the house where Bob and his band the Wailers are holding rehearsals. Bob, his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch), and his manager Don (Anthony Welsh) are all hit. All three survive, with a doctor noting that Rita’s life was saved because one of her dreadlocks managed to keep a bullet out of her brain.
OK, here’s the thing: as I said above, I know nothing about the life of Bob Marley. I am aware that Rita Marley is still alive today because I saw Lynch on The Daily Show say as much last week. But moments like this are the sorts of things that make me sit back and wonder how much of that is true. Can a dreadlock stop a bullet? Or at least slow one down to keep it from killing someone? I honestly don’t know, but that is the sort of thing I wonder about.
Regardless, after the attack, Bob moves his wife and kids to America to live with his mother while he heads to London to produce a new album and plan a tour, all while avoiding Jamaica even as the country descends further into violence. Meanwhile, Bob remembers his past and how he met Rita, converted to Rastafarianism, and became a successful musician. He wants to tour Africa, despite a lack of infrastructure, and he wants to maintain the purity of his music. Can Bob play the concert he intended to play in the first place?
For the most part, Bob Marley: One Love is fine. My tinnitus and the Jamaican accents made it hard for me to follow what characters were saying at points, but it’s a fairly harmless biopic, one that shows Bob Marley’s genial nature and desire to get his music out to the people whether they could pay him a lot of money or not. If Bob had a bad side, the movie doesn’t show it. Oh, Rita has a line about other women, and there’s a female character who pops up in the background a couple times, one noticeably while Bob is one a public pay phone, but who she is or why she’s there, I don’t think I ever found out. If anything, Bob’s flashes of anger and outrage late in the movie often feel like they were just tacked on for some reason to give the movie some conflict, and Bob’s flashbacks seem to be more random as the movie progresses. There’s not much to this movie that makes it seem anything less than fine, but those moments tended to make me wonder what was going on at times since Bob’s anger, well, it didn’t fit the way the movie portrayed Bob before those moments or all that much when they were over.
Grade: C
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