MILES AHEAD-Love Mile's Music Not this Movie

MILES AHEAD is a biopic film on the legendary jazz trumpeter, composer, bandleader Miles Davis.  Davis, was a musical genius & 1 of the most influential musicians of the 20th C.  His jazz music incorporated bebop, 3rd stream, modal and jazz fusion.  Davis said in the movie he didn't want his music labled as jazz "Call my music social music."  The most affecting & factual aspects aside from the musical playing (which was too little) were the social issues of racism and spousal abuse.  The abhorrent beating by white officers & his arrest sharing a smoke with a white woman in NYC outside the club is painful & prescient.  Although charges were dropped, the repercussion of systemic racism still resonate.  Davis was not without his own demons & abusive behaviors.  The film depicts Davis beating his wife Frances (beautifully played by the lovely Emayatzy Corinealdi.)  In a NYT interview Frances Davis said "I actually left running for my life, more than once."  In Davis' memoir he admits  to beating his wives (he was married to Cicely Tyson) and his coke addiction.  Don Cheadle is the dir/screenwriter & star of this artsy/biopic picture.  It hones in on the years 1975-79 when Davis was a recluse.  During this time he stopped performing & recording.  Although there are flashbacks to his successful, brilliant career & happier times with Frances, the movie is frenetic & drug infused.  Cheadle did a brilliant job of acting but not directing. The gun fights & car chases delude the film's powerful rhythm.  The major miscast is Ewan McGregor who falls flat.  He poses as a Rolling Stones reporter ingratiating himself into Davis' life.  McGregor is looped into a farcical battle with record executives and armed thugs.  McGregor is too old for the role & comes of looking ridiculous.  The Rolling Stone mag. did a story on Miles in 1979 reporting his impending death to to drug abuse.  The role of Jr., a young, talented trumpeter with a drug habit was masterfully portrayed by Keith Stanfield (Selma.)  "Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself." (M Davis)  MILES AHEAD was too focused on the unproductive, self-destructive period seen in a muddled haze.