The Trial of the Chicago 7 won the Screen Actors’ Guild award for best ensemble cast. And it’s a hard to think of a more striking piece of ensemble filmmaking than Aaron Sorkin’s latest release.
The film hooks in viewers with a dramatic opening feature Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Richard Schultz, a principled prosecutor pressured into becoming a stooge of the Nixon administration. But Schultz soon gives way to other stars. Sacha Baron Cohen plays the film’s most memorable character, comedic-leftist Abbie Hoffman. Eddie Redmayne plays Students for a Democratic Society Leader Tom Hayden, the tortured straight-man to Baron Cohen’s jester. And Mark Rylance is the film’s most consistent presence, playing the compelling yet stupefied defense lawyer William Kuntsler.
The Trial is a veritable All-Star Game of a film. In addition to those four protagonists, other historic icons (played by cinematic stars) grace the screen. Rising talent Kelvin Harrison Jr. makes an all too brief appearance as Black Panther Fred Hampton. Lucky (2017) director John Carrol Lynch, plays the older, fatherly defendant: David Dellinger. Aquaman nemesis Yayha Abdul-Mateen II is Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale. And Jeremy Strong, plays a refreshingly cartoonish Jerry Rubin.
I’m two paragraphs deep into this review and all I’ve done is list names. Names are the blessing and the curse of The Trial of the Chicago 7. On the one hand the film is an entertaining reminder of how some of America’s great leftists were put at the mercy of reactionary judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella), and overcame their fears through commitment to their unique brands of struggle. On the other hand, there are small moments where The Trial is plagued by the syndrome of too-many cooks.
Take Gordon-Levitt’s character, Schultz. His first appearance makes for an excellent interrogation of legal philosophy. Schultz begins the movie by declaring that the individuals who became “the Chicago 7” should not be prosecuted at all. He believes in the rule-of-law: that individuals should not be indicted in the absence of persuasive evidence.
Schultz, however, finds himself stuck. Attorney General John Mitchell (John Doman) says he expects him to prosecute the case. So what does our hero do? Does he sacrifice his career for his principles? No. He decides to follow Mitchell’s orders.
Schultz is introduced to viewers as a classic protagonist: a well-meaning, promising young man with a moral dilemma. This portrayal even appears to have been a creative choice on Aaron Sorkin’s part; the real Schultz may not have been the cautious, liberal prosecutor The Trial makes him out to be. But despite its ambition, The Trial does not manage to meaningfully work its first protagonist into the complex web of its story.
Schultz is not the only character to break into the film strong, but not really go anywhere from there. The same logic applies to Bobby Seale.
Seale’s mistreatment at the hands of Judge Hoffman was the starkest travesty of the trial. Seale was tried with defendants he didn’t know and had nothing to do with, and as such, ordered to stand trial before his personal attorney could attend. When he reluctantly decides to self-represent, Judge Hoffman insists he be silenced before imposing a degrading punishment upon him.
Outside of the courtroom we see a jaded Seale express his frustration to Tom Hayden. Seale explains that he sees himself as having little in common with his fellow defendants, as his turn to activism was driven by his people’s history of oppression, and not by a desire to rebel against his parents. While the real Bobby Seale might very well have thought this, I couldn’t help but be annoyed that this tension wasn’t explored further and possibly resolved. After all, it was Seale’s confidante, and fellow film-character Fred Hampton who is known for his “fight fire with water” speech, in which he argued socialism was a higher goal that could bring diverse peoples together.
This particular element of the film’s plotting hit a sore sport for me. It reminded me of how liberals (and perhaps Sorkin is one of them), have over the past five years appropriated identity politics from the left, using them as a source of division rather than liberation. Hillary Clinton’s anti-Bernie Sanders quip about how, “breaking up the banks won’t end racism” is a particular infamous example of this trend. But regardless of what one makes of the politics of Seale’s dialogue, there can be no doubt that, like Schultz, he is a protagonist with little to no arc.
The Trial of Chicago 7 simply does not have time for all of its characters: Schultz, Seale, Dellinger, etc. And this is made most apparent when the film makes a desperate bid for a feel good ending.
I name these shortcomings, primarily from the perspective of a political critic. One of the things that intrigues me about The Trial of the Chicago 7, is that it manages to both be a celebration of radicals, while also pivoting back to the safety of liberal ideology. The film begins to explore prison abolitionist themes. But before these questions can become too salient, characters like Richard Schultz are moved out the picture. And while the film introduces audiences to the rhetoric of those seeking “cultural revolution,” it later pivots back to more apolitical critiques of the war: for instance, a scene where Hayden and Schultz alike make tribute to fallen American troops.
But despite these political shortcomings, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is still a very strong movie. Kunstler, a competent and calm lawyer is so compelling, because he is forced to remain calm and “professional” despite facing a rigged justice system. Tom Hayden, meanwhile, makes for a great protagonist, because viewers know he is not the goody-two-shoes the film’s structure, and Abbie Hoffman make him out to be. Hayden is a radical, and bursting with radical urges, even as he feels compelled to mask that for tactical reasons in the context of a trial. Also, unlike Schultz, Seale, and even Kuntsler, this nuanced writing allows for Hayden to experience a true story arc.
Compelling as Hayden’s story is, his presence is surpassed by that of his mischievous counterpart, Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman was thirty-two at the time of his trial, and because of his hippy activism seems younger. Sacha Baron Cohen by contrast, is approaching fifty. And while Baron Cohen is a goofball in his own-right, his turns toward principled political satire in Who is America? And Borat 2, have given him an air of maturity.
Abbie Hoffman was a provocateur who preferred humour to dry polemics. But The Trial of Chicago.7 strongly comes out on his side. His hippy-politics, it concludes, are no less sophisticated and empathetic, than Hayden’s clean-cut brand of activism. Hoffman’s wit, moral clarity and humor are at the heart of many of The Trial’s best scenes, and are undoubtedly the film’s most memorable feature.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is an ambitious movie. At times, it might be too ambitious for its own good. But in aspiring to revive the memories of countercultural icons like Hayden and Hoffman, the film is beautiful (and hilarious) when it counts. Will Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance be enough to warm conservative America up to hippies? Probably not, but the effort makes for riveting and timeless cinema.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.