Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

commander_zero Making a jazz film is hard: the most sincere efforts, such as Clint Eastwood's Bird and Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight, tend to recast the music as a synonym for tragedy and victimhood, the exact opposite truth of an art that was crafted to constantly countermand and undermine tragedy and victimhood. Miles Ahead has been criticized for its crazy sub-plot, that culminates in fistfights and gunplay at a boxing match, where Miles Davis reclaims a Macguffin-like master tape that Columbia Records will evidently do anything to get. Of course, this is completely fiction, but it is worth bearing in mind that co-star Ewan MacGregor has called the film "less a Miles biopic than an attempt to cast Miles in a caper flick that he might like to have been part of." In this light, one might regard such excesses a good way of expanding on the "badass" image, that Miles so liked to project. Historically flawed as it might be, the film makes clear that badassness was in fact a useful survival tactic for Davis, in a music industry full of unctuous guys in suits calling him "Mr. Davis," stressing how honoured they were to meet him, and then exploiting him at every turn. The film bounces around chronologically from the late 1950s to the 1980s. The constant flashbacks are somewhat off-putting, but sometimes they do a very good job. At their centre is Davis' relationship with dancer Frances Taylor; years after she has walked out on him – or rather, run out, fearing for her life – Miles is still obsessed with her. There is a scene where, over the phone, he convinces her to leave the London production of West Side Story to be with him. Just as we start to feel sorry for the lovelorn Miles, Cheadle cuts to the drug-fuelled orgy with two young fans that Davis has interrupted in order to take Taylor's call. Another scene takes us back to the 1959 Sketches of Spain sessions; for a jazz fan, it is a delicious pleasure to see and hear these being recreated, although Cheadle gives the impression that arranger Gil Evans was a sort of conductor for the session who was there to follow Davis' instructions. Early in the film, Davis stops an interviewer from calling his music "jazz." What he plays, Davis insists, is social music. In the midst of current recastings and redefinitions of what "jazz" might be, this is a more important message than one expects to hear in a Hollywood biopic. In reading the many criticisms of Cheadle's film, it might be useful to remember that Davis' music from the '70s and '80s was also fiercely criticized at the time it was made, but as the years go by, and we rethink what the artist was doing, it seems increasingly to be right on. The way this film is regarded might also very well change for the better in the years to come.

ReneWirtz Miles Ahead is a good movie (8 out of 10), as long as you understand as the viewer that this is not a biopic or biography. Nothing much but peripheral things are based on true events. However, this movie is to try to shine a light on the tight rope the eccentric genius Miles Davis had to walk: spotlight or recluse, fame or art, music or painting, love or lust. Don Cheadle is near perfect as Miles Davis and Emayatzy Corinealdi is a great counterbalance as Miles' muse. I'm unsure of Ewan McGregor's overall arc in this story, although he does play his dubious character with gusto. The music is great, still cool after more than half a century!

CANpatbuck3664 From what I understand this was a passion project for Don Cheadle. He pounded the pavement, got financing from numerous sources and finally got the movie made. I read a little bit about Miles Ahead after I saw it and Don was very insistent on making this a different kind of story about Miles Davis. I'll go into it in more detail later in the review but I would say he succeeded completely, he delivers a fresh perspective on the genre and one that has stylistic touches you would expect from a much more experienced director. *Minor Spoilers Ahead* Sometime in the late 1970s Miles Davis (Don Cheadle) is trying to get by and work on a new album. The studio (Columbia Records) is tired of waiting and has cut off the allowance they have been sending him. This irritates him and that doesn't help as he's been reminiscing about his past love Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). All of a sudden there's a knock at the door and a reporter from Rolling Stone named Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor) forces his way in. He wants to do the Miles Davis comeback story and he won't take no for an answer. This leads to Davis punching him in the face. After a while, Davis gets tired of this and decides to go see Columbia who Braden claims set the interview up. On the way there, Davis is less than forthcoming about his life, irritating the crap out of Braden. They get there and the studio tells him that they will not release anymore money until they get the session tapes from the recording sessions at his house. Davis refuses still and after he leaves, one of the executives named Harper (Michael Stuhlbarg) offers money for whoever can steal the recordings from Davis' house. Miles is infuriated and is ready to get rid of Dave until Dave promises to score him some coke.While most of the reviews of Miles Ahead have been positive, most of the praise has gone to Don Cheadle for his performance as Miles Davis. I would agree that he does such a great job. You forget that it's Don playing Miles Davis. I'm not familiar with Davis' work or his life for that matter but for a guy that had a lot of awful aspects to his personality, you still want to follow him and see what's going to happen to him next. This is due to the excellent performance from Don. Emayatzy Corinealdi was also good, she has a strength as Frances and it's hard to watch her give up her dream and deal with Miles Davis because of the confidence in her performance. Ewan McGregor paired with Don Cheadle really well, it's fun to watch them together and even though his character is fictional, he's necessary as the audience avatar to witness Davis' increasingly erratic behaviour. The only downside when it comes to the acting was Michael Stuhlbarg as Harper the music executive. Stuhlbarg is a good actor but his character isn't terrible subtle, he may as well have had BAD GUY written on his forehead.What makes this movie different from the conventional music biopic is that they deal with the time line in a different way. Instead of focusing on Miles Davis' entire career, it's just the two periods of it. Some people have complained that it takes liberties with the truth and I'm not going to disagree. Certain parts of the movie feel like they stretched the truth and dramatized things but it didn't bother me really. This genre has become very formulaic, to the point where it's being parodied and joked about. I was just so happy to see something with a different take on a musician's career. The movie was actually exciting and the gangster style the story took made it interesting.Despite it being only somewhat rooted in reality, there's a lot of little things that make Miles Ahead better than the standard biopic. The way the movie transitions between scene to scene is actually like a lot of Miles' music, it's full of style and unpredictable. The movie also has a big dose of his music and they use it well. Miles Ahead also has some pretty great dialogue, there's some really good lines that come from Miles Davis and I always appreciate when a movie can find some humour to liven things up.I had a feeling that this movie would be good but I was surprised at how different the movie was. You can tell it was shot on the cheap but the cinematography was decent and the grainy feel even helped get you into the time period. It wasn't groundbreaking and it might not have been a substitute for a documentary but I was willing to enjoy it for what it was. This is a different type of story and it delivered a different kind of experience. If you're not too attached to a 100% accurate retelling of the Miles Davis story, I think you'll enjoy this quite a bit.

TxMike I watched this at home on DVD from my local public library. My wife chose to not see it, not her kind of movie.I was a trumpet player through high school, college, and about 20 years of my adult life. I of course knew of Miles Davis but his music is not what I enjoyed hearing. For old style Jazz give me Louis Armstrong, or more currently Wynton Marsalis. Still, recognizing how popular Davis was in certain circles I was anxious to see this movie. He had a number of medical issues and addictions and he died in 1991 at the age of 65.The movie is not at all what I expected. As they discuss and explain in the DVD extra they never wanted to make a "cradle to grave" documentary of Miles Davis, that would be dull and not at all in line with how Davis created his music. So they made a film that has a sort of haphazard structure, not linear at all, and instead of focusing on his playing the story is a fictional heist caper.The main story is set in the late 1970s when Davis was in a several year hiatus, he said he just wasn't inspired and he never created new music just to satisfy Columbia, the studio that had him under contract. But when a reporter from Rolling Stone looks him up, and discovers a "session tape" Davis made, everyone was anxious to hear his new music. The tape is stolen, there is a chase scene, and that turns out to be the core of the story. Many flashbacks are used and it isn't always clear how they relate to the 1970s present.Miles Davis is played by Don Cheadle who also wrote and directed. He is very good in the role, he makes a very believable Davis. And Ewan McGregor is the reporter, Dave Braden.I enjoyed the movie, it was good to get a glimpse of who Miles Davis the person might have been. Viewers expecting to see a documentary may be disappointed.SPOILERS: When it is all done, the tape is recovered, and we hear some of the music, Braden asks Miles, "All I hear is organ, when do I hear you?" (Meaning the trumpet.) Davis answers "That is me." His new session tape was of him playing organ. In real life Davis actually began playing piano before he took up trumpet, and he spent some time studying at Julliard after high school before striking out on his own.