The Trial of the Chicago 7 Review (2020)

I’ll be the first to admit it can be hard to outright dislike a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. His style, especially his style of dialogue, fast-paced and pompous-but-grounded, is so distinct and concise and flows so well that it can -- regardless of the action of the scene -- be mesmerizing just to listen to. At its best, what I’ll be calling “Sorkinism” for this article (Sorkinism here defined as the culmination of Aaron Sorkin trademarks) has given us legendary screenplays like The Social Network, seamlessly transitioning between three different parallel storylines and hitting every beat. At its worst, though, Sorkinism gives us films like Netflix’s The Trial of the Chicago 7.

I’ll preface this first by saying, I wanted to like this movie -- or, more accurately, I wanted this film to be good -- but I had a lot of concerns going into it. A film about the trial of the 7 men accused of conspiring to incite violence against law enforcement at an anti-Vietnam War demonstration outside the Democratic National Convention of 1969 is extremely topical given the Black Lives Matter protests taking place nationwide. Government corruption, police brutality, and biased courts are heavy, poignant, and unfortunately very relevant themes this year, and though this film was written and filmed before this year’s BLM protests began, these are prevalent issues even when protests are not widespread. This film, then, has an obligation to take a bold stance and have a strong message; “Oh Christ,” I say, then, when I learn the film is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin.

Because Sorkinism is not bold stances and strong messages. It’s witty spliced dialogue, wisecrack geniuses, and petty intellectual disputes. And this movie is wrought with those trademarks -- which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s very fun to watch, but it certainly feels out of place in a film with subject matter such as this. The film is straightforward and powerful when it needs to be, but only because of a) the sheer weight of the history we are seeing reenacted, and b) the performances from the actors (except Eddie Redmayne): the script itself doesn’t say much of value. Simply put, this just doesn’t feel like Sorkin’s story to tell.

That being said, if you remove the film from its present-day sociopolitical context (which is incredibly ill-advised as again, this movie deals with police brutality and government corruption, and media does not and cannot exist in a vacuum, but I digress), you are left with a solid trial movie with fantastic performances from Frank Langella as the devious Judge Hoffman, perhaps the most detestable film character in the past 5 years at least; Jeremy Strong -- hot off his Emmy win for his portrayal of Kendall Roy in HBO’s Succession, polar opposite to the role he plays in Chicago 7 -- as the hippie Jerry Rubin; and most notably Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, whose portrayal of Bobby Seale, the leader of the Black Panther Party, is by far the most powerful part of the film. But of course, because Sorkin focuses on all the wrong things in this film, Seale is removed from the narrative two-thirds of the way through.