Review by Brad Balfour
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Frank Langella, Mark Rylance, Ben Shenkman, Danny Flaherty, Noah Robbins, John Carroll Lynch, Joseph Gordon Leavitt, Alex Sharp, Noah Robbins, John Doman, J. C. MacKenzie
Thanks to veteran director Aaron Sorkin, we get another telling of the Chicago 7 trial which puts the focus on the foibles of the Establishment versus the puncturing power of hippie progressives.
Pitting police against protestors, 1968’s Democratic National Convention was a disaster of political and cultural proportions. In Mayor Richard Daley’s Chicago, the levers of power were all held in his hands. For him, no bunch of radical hippie leftist malcontents were going to disrupt his city. Or so he thought.
Netflix presented this film at a time when progressive protests called into question the entire establishment of the United States political system whether Republican or Democrat. Nowadays, the divide is even further widened though that’s hard to believe as the Black Lives Matters movement places the spotlight on divides that should still be in play more than 40 years later.
Though the trial forged a union among its leading participants — a group of anti–Vietnam War protesters charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines with the intention of inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago — they didn’t directly collude. For the Chicago Seven, there was an overlap and a kind of call and response between them — especially when you add in the revolutionary Black Panther leader Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) which unofficially makes it Chicago Eight– what makes the trial even more peculiar and forced is that they weren’t really co-conspirators.
In August 1968, Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins), John Froines (Daniel Flaherty) and Seale prepared to protest the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Five months later, they were arrested and charged with inciting a riot. Attorney General John N. Mitchell (John Doman) appointed prosecutors Tom Foran (J. C. MacKenzie) and Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), while all the defendants, except Seale, were represented by William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) and Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman).
Featuring this ensemble cast, the film earned six nominations at the 93rd Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Baron Cohen. It also received five nominations at the 78th Golden Globe Awards (winning for Best Screenplay), three at the 27th Screen Actors Guild Awards (winning Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture), and three at the 74th British Academy Film Awards.
As the trial kicks off, Judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella) shows significant prejudice for the prosecution. Since Seale’s attorney, Charles Garry, can’t attend due to illness, Judge Hoffman insists that Kunstler represent him. This insistence is rejected by both Kunstler and Seale. Seale receives support from Fred Hampton which Judge Hoffman assumes is legal help. Abbie Hoffman openly antagonizes the court. Judge Hoffman removes a juror who he suspects sympathizes with the defendants due to reported threats from the Black Panther Party and charges the defendants and their attorneys with multiple counts of contempt of court. Tension builds between the defendants.
Numerous undercover police officers and FBI agents testify. At the time of the convention, Hayden noticed two police officers tailing Davis and attempted to let the air out of their tire, but was caught and later arrested. Abbie and others led a protest to the police station where Hayden was detained but turned around upon seeing the police blockade outside. When trying to return to the park, police had taken control of the hill with orders to disperse the crowd. A riot ensued, and the protestors clashed with police.
Days later, the defendants learn that Fred Hampton was killed during a police raid. In retaliation for Seale continuing to speak up for his constitutional rights, the Judge has him taken to another room, beaten, and returned gagged and chained. This causes the defense and the prosecution to object, and Judge Hoffman declares Seale’s case a mistrial.
The defense puts Ramsey Clark (Michael Keaton), Attorney General during the riots, on the stand. Judge Hoffman refuses to let him testify in front of the jury as he had declined to initiate prosecutions after the riots because of evidence that the Chicago Police Department instigated them. Dellinger punches a bailiff, resulting in his arrest.
Kunstler presents a tape implicating Hayden to the defendants and preps Hayden for cross-examination. On the night of the riot, Davis tried to pacify officers trying to arrest someone climbing a flagpole. After police clubbed Davis’s head, an enraged Hayden exclaimed, “If blood is going to flow, then let it flow all over the city!”. The defendants were cornered by police and beaten. Abbie deduced that Hayden had misspoken, claiming the statement would have started with, “If our blood is going to flow… .” Realizing that mistake would be exploitable on the stand, Hayden asks Abbie to testify. Abbie agrees.
At the end of the trial, Hayden is given a chance to make a case for a lenient sentence. However, over Judge Hoffman’s objections, Hayden uses his closing remarks to name the 4,752 soldiers who were killed in the Vietnam War since the trial began. This act prompts many in the court to stand and cheer.
Sorkin originally wrote the screenplay in 2007, with the intent of Steven Spielberg directing the film with mostly unknown actors. After the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike and budget concerns forced Spielberg to drop out as director, Sorkin was announced as director in October 2018, and much of the cast joined the same month. Filming took place in the fall of 2019 in Chicago and around New Jersey.
Originally planned for a theatrical release by Paramount Pictures, the distribution rights to the film were sold to Netflix due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was initially released in select theaters on September 25, 2020, and began streaming digitally on Netflix on October 16. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances, Sorkin’s screenplay, and how it established how modern time parallels to the 1960s.