It’s not an awards season without a flood of biopics made to mostly showcase one terrific lead performance, and this year is no different. Netflix in particular loves to do this and today our subject is “Rustin,” a biopic focusing on the life of Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr.’s right hand man and the man responsible for spearheading the march on Washington in 1963, despite facing opposition from other civil rights leaders due to his status as an openly gay man.
Directed by George C. Wolfe (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Nights in Rodanthe”) from a script by Dustin Lance Black (“Milk,” “Under the Banner of Heaven”) and Julian Breeze (“When They See Us”), starring Colman Domingo (“Zola,” “Fear the Walking Dead”) as Rustin himself, there’s a very distinct vim and vigor to the film as it goes on. While it might be a bit cliche to say, the fact that this is a film about a prominent gay man, written by, directed by, and starring a gay man just gives it all a very different vibe from other similar works.
The rest of the ensemble cast, starring the likes of Chris Rock (“Top Five,” “Madagascar”), Jeffrey Wright (“The French Dispatch,” “The Batman”), Michael Potts (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “The First Lady”), Da'Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers,” “Dolemite is My Name”), and CCH Pounder (“The Shield,” “NCIS: New Orleans”), amongst many more, and while they all do a good job, they never manage to rise to the level of Domingo’s performance. It isn’t really anyone’s fault, just the nature of this kind of biopic. When Rock shows up as Roy Wilkins for about five minutes total, he has gravitas and respect, but he also isn’t transformative. The same goes for the rest of the cast, feeling like celebrities doing good work, but never rising above being brief vignettes in Rustin’s story.
Domingo truly does carry the film though. He has the dramatic gravitas to lift the entire movie onto his shoulders and run it across a football field. There’s such tender emotion and care put into his portrayal of Rustin’s story that it's almost impossible not to get invested because of it. Quite simply, it's a performance far better than any other individual aspect of the film.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie ends up falling prey to other typical factors of productions like this. The cinematography is serviceable but overall bland. The musical score, while full of loud horns and beats, is just somewhat forgettable. The production design is period accurate and impressive but lacks any staying power. For as significant and impactful as this story and person is, the surrounding production has the vibes of a made-for-television History Channel movie.
Make no mistake, despite these elements, the tale is still as dramatic and emotional as it deserves to be. It's the sort of byproduct of a film like this: when you get this many talented people in a room together, even if not everyone is working on the same level or the sets seem a bit flat and hokey, you still have a group of talented people delivered good dialogue in a powerful way, which makes for a film that, on a basic level, is still enjoyable to watch.
“Rustin” the film is unfortunately not as revolutionary as Rustin the person, but that doesn’t mean the film itself is poor by any means. Rather, it still features an ensemble working well with a great script and a phenomenal lead performance which alone makes the film worth watching. The packaging could be better, but the man at the center is still a wonder to watch. 3.5/5
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