Bob Marley: One Love (2024) Movie Review

Bob Marley: One Love (2024) - Movie Review - Quick Movie Reviews by Haris

Based on the life of reggae singer and songwriter Bob Marley, from his rise to fame in the mid-1970s up until his death in 1981.

To the regular audience members and Bob Marley fans that are worried what the critics are saying, all I can say is this:

🎡🎢”Don’t worry, about a thing, ’cause every little thing, is gonna be alright!” 🎢🎡

Me personally, I loved the movie for the most part. I got to discover the music, I got to discover Bob Marley as a person, his inspiration for the song, his views on life. He truly was one of a kind. I was invested in the story. My only issue is that I wished for a lot more of all of this. Give me an epic 3-hour long movie! This isn’t even 100 minutes without credits. It’s very fast.

The story takes place from the 1976 assassination attempt, to his self-imposed exile from Jamaica to England, to his cancer diagnosis, to the 1978 One Love Peace Concert. This is something I appreciated so much. Most musical biopics seem like they summarize a musician’s whole career. This one, however, only focuses on the most exciting/turbulent/crucial part of his career and focuses on the messages of his songs. I am kind of sick of the classic biopic formula. I’m glad this movie is different, a nice breath of fresh air. It still follows the typical the biopic formula in some aspects, but, overall, this feels very different.

Kingsley Ben-Adir does a great job as Bob Marley. At first, it looked kind of strange. They don’t really look alike, but, damn, do they sound so much alike. His voice is practically identical. It’s like they used an AI deepfake of Bob Marley’s actual voice and dubbed it over Kingsley Ben-Adir’s voice. It’s kind of freaky. Kingsley Ben-Adir was the perfect casting choice here. You can see he’s really giving it his all. He’s great in the emotional scenes and when he’s singing, he looks like he’s having the time of his life. It was infectious seeing that positivity shine through. Not to be overlooked, Lashana Lynch, great as always.

And I gotta give praise to the music as well. I just wished there was more of it. Well, me and my two friends were jammin’ to some music in the car afterwards. Jammin’ has almost become a thing of the past. We were jammin’ & hoped the jam was gonna last as long as possible. Yeah, I just not so sneakily threw in some more Bob Marley lyrics. Sorry, had to get it out of my system πŸ™‚

My only real big issue with this movie and something that actually kind of frustrated me was the abrupt ending and so much more story stuff were left unexplored, only very briefly mentioned. This movie is too fast for its own good. If this movie would have been a 3-hour movie and it delivered everything it promises, it would have been a 10/10* for me, but, all I can give it is 7,5/10*!

Directed by: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Written by: Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin, Reinaldo Marcus Green
Starring: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Henry Douthwaite, Sevana, Hector Lewis, Tosin Cole, Aston Barrett Jr., Michael Gandolfini, Nadine Marshall, Anthony Welsh
Runtime: 104 minutes