Movie Review: The Trial of the Chicago 7 pt. 1

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

10/10

At first sight, this movie seemed just like an everyday courtroom-style, historical drama. And with only that, I was able to learn more about American history with interest. Despite being a famous event in it, I’d never heard about it, and finding out about it in movie form grabbed my attention.

Before going into the movie itself, I praise the acting of everyone who was on screen in this. I’ve never seen anything with this great acting by literally everyone. Halfway into the film, I had to catch myself, because I’d been believing that I was living in the 1960s, and I had somehow found my way inside a courtroom to witness a dramatic trial. How everyone could carry each scene forward, working together so naturally was a mystery to me. Though I believe that Sacha Baron Cohen seems the most likely, I wouldn’t be surprised for anyone getting an Oscar for a performance like this. The only way I could possibly express my feelings was that I was blown away. It was not only that, I felt that the music at exactly the right times to make your heart pound, and the actual scenes of the riots inserted in between balanced the movie well, format-wise.

Now, the movie started off by showing the footage of Martin Luther King Jr. 's and John F. Kennedy’s assassinations. Of course, this could simply work to give the audience some backstory before the movie actually takes place, but I think it’s more likely showing the end of justice. Which seems just the case for everything that unfolds afterward. And the end of justice might just be one of the reasons, aside from ending the Vietnam War, that made the Chicago 7 decide to protest in Chicago.

The movie doesn’t show the scene of the protests that quickly deteriorated into violent riots right away. Instead, we become part of the people listening in for the trial (which you end up believing is actually true, like I said before), watching carefully as the rather surprising truth unravels gradually as time passes. I decided that this method was used in The Social Network as well, not letting the audience know the cause of the suing until the time came that the people involved had to tell the story.