From the Street to the Court, Seven Individuals Fight for a Common Goal

Sacha Baron Cohen (left) and Jeremy Strong 
in "The Trial of the Chicago 7" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com 

After years of writing masterful screenplays, Aaron Sorkin made his feature directorial debut in 2017 with the biographical drama, “Molly’s Game,” which he also wrote.  Although it was an instance where he showed more of a flair for writing than directing, he nevertheless displayed sparks of filmmaking potential that could become something great.

He now returns to the director’s chair for another biographical drama, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which is also written by him.  Here, Sorkin cements his directing talents that pair superbly with his captivating screenplay.

In 1968, during the time of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a riot occurs between a group of protestors and the city police.  For the next several months, the Chicago 7 (Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong, John Carroll Lynch, Noah Robbins, and Daniel Flaherty) are put on trial for the confrontation.

The film has one of the most stunning casts of the year, a cast that’s full of esteemed performers who provide impassioned work to bring this staggering true story to life as their characters traverse the tumultuousness of the trial.  As great as everyone is, the two standouts (not just from the actors portraying the Chicago 7, but the cast as a whole), are Redmayne and Cohen as political activists Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman, respectively.  The material that they’re given allows them to display their characters’ intense dedication to their cause, all of which adds to the gravity of the film’s historical moment and presenting what their work means for America’s future.

Outside of the actors portraying the Chicago 7, there also has to be a mentioning of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as political activist Bobby Seale, Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman, and Mark Rylance as the Chicago 7’s lawyer, William Kunstler.  All three of them round out the cast with committed performances that do their part to help bring out the intensity of the courtroom procedures and ensuring that you feel the contentiousness of the battle that’s being fought.

Sorkin’s screenplay takes its intriguing historical era and balances an abundance of characters, allowing us to get to know each of the figures.  With its approach in telling the story of the trial interspersed with scenes in the past that lead up to said trial, we have both timelines get to their boiling points at the same time as we arrive at the part of the riot that led the Chicago 7 to court, and then going to the final days of the trial right after.  Sorkin gives us a deeply detailed view for both of these sections of the story, showing what motivated the Chicago 7 to protest, and then the stress that they face when fighting for their cause in front of a judge and jury.  With the story focusing on one of the defining moments of the ‘60s, Sorkin provides this event with an in-depth and compelling examination.

The editing by Alan Baumgarten (one of the three editors for Sorkin’s “Molly’s Game”) and the direction by Sorkin blends well with the nature of the latter’s dialogue.  Sorkin is able to take his time establishing the characters and setting, but at other times, he increases the pace to make us feel the mounting tension of the scenario’s time-sensitive nature, with the characters going through their dialogue in a tense fashion.  The latter is most noticeable in a scene within the last 20 minutes, where the story transitions back and forth between the turning point in the demonstrations and Hayden being presented evidence that can reveal his role in said turning point.  It calls to mind the pivotal scene between Steve Jobs and John Scully in the second act of Danny Boyle’s 2015 film, “Steve Jobs,” which was also written by Sorkin.  What Boyle, Sorkin, editor Elliot Graham, and composer Daniel Pemberton accomplished there is done to just as powerful of an effect here by Sorkin, Baumgarten, and Pemberton, and is one of the best sequences of the movie.

Back in 1992, when Sorkin wrote the screenplay for “A Few Good Men,” which was adapted from his 1989 stage play, he gave audiences a pulse-pounding legal drama that showed Sorkin’s talent for delivering screenplays where you become absorbed in the dialogue-heavy nature of the scenes.  Whether it be “A Few Good Men,” “The Social Network,” “Molly’s Game,” or “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” Sorkin is able to bring genuine and heated confrontations when it comes to narratives involving legal matter, showing how tense such interactions can become when people are trying to have their side of the story heard.  With this being only the second movie that he has directed, Sorkin does an impressive job in handling the sprawling nature of the story with its many characters, the details it takes into recreating that time period, and delivering as much tension to the scenes of the protest as he brings to the scenes of the trial.  It’s because of all of this that “The Trial of the Chicago 7” gives you the sense of what it must have been like to see history such as this being made. 

Grade: A