NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Jack Spencer If you are expecting a bio of Miles Davis, you will be disappointed. If you want to see an actor portray Miles Davis as he was, you will love this movie.It is really just a two day adventure in the life of the Dark Prince, which may or may not have actually happened. But it is definitely how Miles would have done it. Don Cheadle did a jaw dropping portrayal.If you know about Miles you will not be surprised by the violent brooding personality displayed here. The film suggests it was caused by his pining for his beloved ex wife, I don't know, but it is very believable.As far as the soundtrack goes, we are treated to brief Miles Davis standards. The scene were the character of Junior is rehearsing in a club, is the best musically. This is definitely for Miles fans. You will have fun, but don;t expect to learn anything new about the life of the Dark Prince.

rzajac Lots of user reviews saying "Miles Ahead" ("MA") attempts to elevate filmic cubistic hash to high art... and fails. I don't think he fails.Cheadle made his decisions, and stuck with 'em. He decided to go with a groundwork of a slice of Miles's life during a lost period, punctuated with flashbacks, and the whole thing riven with sudden, jarring, splintered, surreal touches. Worked for me.Other factors. Heard 5h1t said about McGregor, but I think he was pitch perfect... and I figure he took direction well from Cheadle. Though one never knows. Loved Cheadle's direction; warm, direct, honest; and yet also with a touch of caricature here and there.Technically, it's a delight. The colors are intentionally stark and bright, the camera-work is great, the music is great. By now, there's no excuse for the film representation of musicianship not to feel genuine, convincing, inspiring. The edits are expert, the pacing just fine.There are countless moments which showcase a view of Miles as a deeply feeling man. This is a wonderful counterpoint to pop, post-modern, swanky press representations of Davis as a guy with a lizard soul. I love that Cheadle did that. There's a moment when Miles lovingly caresses the shoulder of his pianist as he walks by (Evans?). The lovingness and respectfulness of that moment filled my own heart. It's kinda funny: I often hold myself back from movies that are trying to reach out to push my buttons. There was something about the way Cheadle manages the tone of his portrayal--and that's through the entire movie, not just moment-by-moment--that invited me to open up and feel those moments of connection *with* his Davis.Anyway... Great film product! Lots of fun to watch. Nice balance of menace and connection.Check it out

leonblackwood Review: Don Cheadle was definitely born to play Miles Davis, and the fact that Cheadle really did play the instruments throughout the movie, was an added bonus but the storyline was all over the place and you don't really get an insight into the man who was a musical genius. I liked the chemistry between Cheadle and Ewan McGregor, who played a writer called Dave Braden and Emayatzy Corinealdi played Frances Taylor, Miles Davis wife, extremely well. The film is based around a 5 year period, when Miles Davis stopped recording and he went on a downhill spiral, due to drugs, depression and violence. You don't really get to hear much of his music throughout the movie, and the constant flashbacks, spoilt the flow of the film. I was hoping to get a reason why Miles Davis had such a bad attitude and destructive behaviour but the director chose to stick to certain events that happened during that period. His troubled relationship with Frances, and heavy drug taking, played a big part in his constant paranoia and the way that he lived his life on the edge but the one thing that people loved him for, was his music. Personally, I was hoping for more from this movie, mainly because there hasn't been a film which has documented his life but with that aside, you can't fault the brilliant performance from Cheadle, who was the perfect candidate for this role. Average!Round-Up: Don Cheadle, 51, wrote, directed and produced this movie, and he put together the cast and budget, which must have been hard to do, as he was playing the lead. This is the first movie that he has directed, so he definitely jumped in at the deep end, by playing a musical icon. He also produced Crash, Talk To Me, Darfur Now, Traitor, The Guard and St. Vincent, which I found quite funny. His first movie as an actor, was in Hamburger Hill, in 1987, and he has starred in some successful films like Colors, Devil in a Blue Dress, Boogie Nights, Out of Sight, Traffic, Ocean's Eleven franchise, Hotel Rwanda, Crash, Reign Over Me, Brooklyn's Finest, Iron Man franchise, Flight and the Avengers franchise, so it isn't surprising that he has decided to turn to directing. For his first project, he certainly done a good job, in terms of putting in a brilliant performance but the script could have done with some structure and depth. Budget: $345,000 Worldwide Gross: $4.8millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their biography/music/dramas, starring Don Cheadle, Ewan McGregor, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Keith Stanfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Christina Marie Karis and Morgan Wolk. 5/10

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.