One Night in Miami begins with a jaunty plunking of the piano under a series of cartoonish jeers and jokes from Muhammad Ali (Goree), then still called Cassius Clay. He hops through the boxing ring, confident of a win he hasn’t yet clinched, before a punch to the face lands him flat on his rear, wide-eyed and defeated.
This is the start of director Regina King’s unique approach to fictionalizing slices of the 1960s Black Power movement. Focused on a historic hotel room meeting between Ali, Malcolm X, the King of Soul Sam Cooke (Odom Jr.), and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown (Hodge),