X
- 2016
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 40 m
- 2016
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 40 m
Summary In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis (Don Cheadle) virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and pa...
Directed By: Don Cheadle
Written By: Steven Baigelman, Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson
- 2016
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 40 m
- 2016
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 40 m
Miles Ahead
64
6.3
Where to Watch
Summary In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis (Don Cheadle) virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and pa...
Directed By: Don Cheadle
Written By: Steven Baigelman, Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
64
62% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
33% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
5% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
64
62% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
33% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
5% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Does it matter that stretches of Miles Ahead — a gun-rattling, squealing-tire car chase included — came out of the filmmakers’ imagination rather than Davis’s life? (Mr. Cheadle shares script credit with Steven Baigelman.) Purists may howl, but they’ll also miss the pleasure and point of this playfully impressionistic movie.
Miles Ahead is a performance showcase, and might have seemed like a sure Oscar nomination for Cheadle, on paper, had the picture been more complete, more fulfilling.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 User Ratings
6.3
46% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
38% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
15% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 User Ratings
6.3
46% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
38% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
15% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
Miles Ahead Indeed. From the shots, the acting, the comedy and the experience of real life comes a film that I've been waiting to see for a LONG time.
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The music, the acting, the pacing, the cinematography is pitch perfect. Don Cheadle is electrifying in this unforgettable and excellent drama. Miles Ahead is a film that showcases the soulful filmmaking capable by Don Cheadle and it sets an example of great cinema for ages to come. Beautiful acting, great pacing of story, near flawless direction. Excellent, speechless to say anything else I will leave you with the task to watch the film immediately.
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Cheadle's tender eyes and scraped-raw whisper prove reason enough for Davis fans to give Miles Ahead a go: Just often enough, I thought, "Holy shit, this is what a day with Miles might feel like."
So give Don Cheadle credit for innovation, at least: His Miles Davis biopic (which he directed, co-wrote, and stars in), Miles Ahead, tackles the problem head-on… by inventing cinematic things for Davis to do when he’s not playing music, including ludicrous car chases and gunfights.
This is a jazz movie, both in style and in substance, and so, rather, his goal is to try to capture the fog-like essence of Miles.
What hurts Miles Ahead, though, is a lack of imagination.
Actor-turned-director Don Cheadle trashes the historic career of Miles Davis in Miles Ahead, named after one of the greatest albums ever made by one of the most influential musicians of all time.
A must for Miles Davis and Don Cheadle fans. Cheadle, who stars and directs, has found an Incredibly creative approach,. Luscious pictures and sound. Beautifully directed and acted, Cheadle has captured the essence of Miles the man and his music. SEE THIS MOVIE!!!
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This wacky hybrid of musician's biopic and buddy adventure/action flick has its flaws, but its uniqueness caught my attention. Cheadle is superb as the notoriously brilliant but hard-to-handle Davis, and MacGregor, playing a journalist trying to get an exclusive profile, is fine as his ad hoc sidekick. Some of the cinematography is done in the same style as some of his album covers, which is an interesting choice, and some of the dialogue scores too. Other choices - like certain sections of the soundtrack - are less impressive. Really it is pretty much a mess, but a fun one.
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“Miles Ahead” is an odd Hollywood bio of a Black jazz musician. It has all the clichés such as his being a heroin/coke addict, physically abusing his wife, (a beautiful Emayatzy Corindealdi), being beaten by police and arrested, a sex addict, etc., but it is told in a very strange way. The film deals with the past and present, sometimes in the same frame, but telling us little about the man himself.
I was looking forward to this movie because I was/am a big fan of Miles Davis’s music since I saw him for the first time at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955 when I was 19 when I was on leave from the Marines. I collected all his records and when I lived in NYC in the early 1960s I saw him in many clubs. I just knew the man as a musician nothing about him personally and the film really doesn’t help there.
There has been good word of mouth about the film, and Dan Cheadle’s performance as Miles Davis, plus his first directorial effort and he co-wrote the screenplay with Steven Baigelman. Miles has a limp but it is never explained just as his very raspy voice isn’t, unless it is and because Cheadle takes that rasp very low we don’t hear it but that’s not really the case. When I got home I googled it and it seems it was due to after operation when he wasn’t suppose to talk for 10 days he yelled on the second day! And the limp was due to a bad hip.
Another negative is that it turns into an action movie with a car chase!
While Cheadle does give a good performance I really don’t see it as an Oscar worthy one though much is being said about it unless it is a reaction to the Oscar nominations of this past February. The movie, like a jam session, is all over the place but the one constant is the music of Miles Davis on the sound track. Here, also, Cheadle makes a misstep by not playing a continuous full out, fully filmed complete music number until the end credits eventually turning into a new rap song.
Instead of seeing “Miles Ahead” I suggest you put on one of his records, sit back and be transformed by the man’s trumpet playing.
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This is possibly the worst cinebiograhy I've ever seen, even worse considering it's about such genius of Miles Davis. This movie seems more interested in car chases, gun fights and drugs than his actual music - that barely comes to surface on this cut. Also a dark, slow, badly portrayed movie. AVOID.
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Production Company
Sony Pictures Classics,
Bifrost Pictures,
Miles Davis Properties,
IM Global,
Sobini Films,
Yellowsaw Productions,
Crescendo Productions,
Naked City Films
Release Date Apr 1, 2016
Duration 1 h 40 m
Rating R
Tagline If you gonna tell a story, come with some attitude
Awards
Black Reel Awards
• 4 Nominations
Image Awards (NAACP)
• 2 Nominations
Palm Springs International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
