Bob Marley: One Love: Movie Review

Hello,

Yesterday I went to the theaters to see the new bio pick Bob Marley: One Love. I have always enjoyed Marley's music but did not know too much about the man himself, other than the things that everyone knows about him: how influential he was, he practiced the Rastafarian religion, and died young of cancer. I was looking forward to learning more about the musician's story, similar to how Rocketman taught me more about Elton John and Bohemian Rhapsody taught me more about Freddie Mercury. I also discovered that Bob Marley's children, Ziggy and Cedella, along with his wife Rita and daughter-in-law Orly, all served as producers on this project which made me even more excited to see this film. 

Unfortunately, I felt that this movie fell well short of expectations. Admittedly, I was a little concerned with how heavily the film was being marketed; sometimes the trailer would be shown multiple times in one sitting which in itself was bizarre. When a movie is over marketed like that, it is sometimes a telltale sign that it is not that good. There was nothing wrong with the acting, and the music was great. Kingsley Ben-Adir, who played Marley, did an excellent job and even performed all of the songs for the movie. However, I felt that the story was too sporadic, it seemed like the editing team wasn't sure how to tie the story together, so just threw a bunch of different scenes in and called it day. I remember one specific instance in the film when we are seeing a montage of Marley's European tour. During the montage, we see Bob open the door of his hotel room to be greeted by a beautiful woman who is not his wife, but then we never see anything else in the entire movie related to that instance. We never find out who she was or why she was at his hotel room. 

This movie had a lot of potential to be very good but fell short due to the screenwriting and film editing. My overall rating for this film is a 5/10.  Of course, I recommend checking this movie out and making your own opinions. 

Thanks for reading!!