Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ on Prime Video, A Biopic of a Music Legend and International Inspiration

This week on Underwhelming Music Biopic Theatre is Bob Marley: One Love (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video), a bland BOATS (Based On A True Story) drama that takes a legend among legends and transforms him into the stuff of disappointingly generic movies. Under the watchful eye of Marley’s family and estate, director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) sausage-machines out a story encompassing a few of the tumultuous later years in the reggae musician’s life, with the talented Kingsley Ben-Adir in the lead role. And the result is nice, in the most blase sense of the word. But nice enough to warrant a recommendation? I’m not so sure about that.

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s 1976. Jamaica is in a state of political turmoil. Violent unrest. Men with guns. Civil war may be next. Bob Marley (Ben-Adir) plays soccer in a dusty lot with friends, his children watching, but the game is disrupted by gunfire. Everyone scatters. Driving home, Bob’s son asks why those men were shooting at each other. Bob’s answer? “Don’t worry,” he sings, “’bout a thing.” Bob’s planning a peace concert in Kingston, and while he hopes it’ll be unifying, pragmatists worry it’ll “destabilize the country.” He gets the Wailers together – including his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch), a backup singer – and they work through “I Shot the Sheriff” in his living room. When the music’s flowing, it sure seems like every little thing will be alright.

And then. Two days before the concert, two men invade Marley’s home. They shoot Rita in the head. Bob is grazed with a bullet. His friend and manager Don Taylor (Anthony Welsh) takes bullets. Somehow, everyone survives. Should they cancel the concert? Of course not. That would mean violence trumps peace. Bandaged and still bleeding, Bob takes the stage and is taken by the spirit, losing himself in the rhythm. Rastafari. But Bob won’t stay in Jamaica – three months later, he’s in London while Rita and the children are with his mother in the States. If they’re near him, they’re in danger, he insists. London is no sanctuary, though. He and his bandmates go to see The Clash, and afterwards, they’re arrested for, well, no reason. For being Black. For being Rastafarians. 

London is where Bob will record his next album. It’ll be different, he tells his manager, Chris Blackwell (James Norton). “Music will run like river,” Bob says. It will be his magnum opus with the gorgeously minimalist cover art, Exodus. There will be a scene in which he looks pensive while holding a guitar and writing an iconic song. There will be a montage of a bountiful recording session, followed by a second montage of jubilant European tour dates and zoom-ins on album charts highlighting Exodus‘s success. Bob hopes to tour Africa, despite the logistical challenges. Logistics aren’t Bob’s concern. He gets together with the Wailers not to nitpick this chord or that arrangement. He finds, nurtures and leads the ride on the vibe. He’s a big-picture guy. “Me in it because of a cause,” Bob says. But he’s torn – between being present in his turbulent homeland and being safe to follow his spiritual and artistic calling. That inner conflict seems to be the dramatic crux of One Love, but is it successfully exploring that?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I don’t know if the music-biz biopic has hit a nadir, but it’s definitely plateaued with a series of films that rarely surpass expectations. So: One Love isn’t nearly as memorable as Rocketman, as rambunctious as Elvis or as sloppy and toothless as Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s a cut above I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and right smack in the middle of the road like Respect.

Performance Worth Watching: Ben-Adir tackles his second iconic role, after playing Malcolm X in One Night in Miami. His interpretation of Marley is undoubtedly passionate and more than a mere impersonation. This otherwise lackluster movie doesn’t deserve him.

Memorable Dialogue: I needed subtitles to read the question that Bob’s thickly accented spiritual mentor asks of him: “So wa you a go do with dis chance Jah give you?”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: One Love focuses on Marley’s life between roughly 1975 and ’78, avoiding the biopic bear trap of trying to cover decades of an influential artist’s ups and downs. That and casting Ben-Adir are the best assets of a flat and dutiful movie that looks good and benefits from the bountiful use of Marley’s timeless music, but struggles mightily to generate any meaningful drama. It’s cut up with flashbacks and symbolically heavy-handed dream sequences. It features a blowout between Bob and Rita over infidelity. Narrative beats feel like Wikipedia bullet points. Sloganeering passes for dialogue. Montages are embraced rather than avoided. It’s shallow in its psychoanalysis of its protagonist and flimsy in its portrayal of the spirituality and politics that drive him. Concert performances provide a spark or two, but don’t quite capture Marley’s passion and charisma; of course, the film concludes with a big Jamaican homecoming concert, but barely bothers to insist how important it is for Marley, for listeners, for the country. 

Perhaps it goes without saying that Marley deserves a better biopic, but I’ll say it anyway: Marley deserves a better biopic. It’s a docile drama that’s more gloss than substance, and fails to generate any sense of tension, its primary arc weirdly flattened despite the verve, color and eccentricity that characterize Marley. The state of the music bio is increasingly dire, and this one had me wondering if it accomplishes anything that a baseline documentary couldn’t; at least a doc would incorporate electric archival footage of Marley finding and keeping the muse on stage. At what point does a movie cease being “cinema” and become merely a bucketful of cliches? I’m afraid we just found out.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The life of Bob Marley shouldn’t feel like wallpaper with a great record playing in the background.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.