One normally doesn’t get involved in a high speed shootout in Manhattan in a car with personalized plates. Maybe I’m wrong here. OK, celebrities don’t normally get involved in high speed shootouts in Manhattan. Or, at least if they do, that news has somehow avoided my Facebook feed. Perhaps Miles Davis (writer/director/star/horn section Don Cheadle) simply described a pre-internet era of recklessness. Without the internet, I can imagine all sorts of 70s stars from Gene Wilder to Johnny Bench wielding hand guns and muscle cars up and down 5th Avenue.
The aptly, if poorly, titled Miles Ahead explores days in the life of 1979 Miles Davis, five years after the legendary jazz (sorry “social”) musician became a hermit. Nursing a degenerative hip disease and a burning candle for his long gone wife (Emayatzy Corinealdi), Miles spends his days doing blow and correcting deejays. I’m immediately reminded of the “where are they now?” comment in This Is Spinal Tap.
Something needs to happen to generate action. That something is “Rolling Stone” “reporter” Dave Brill (Ewan McGregor). It is unclear who Dave works for and what his angle is on Miles. What we do know is 1) he wants to write about Miles and 2) he’s in over his head. Miles doesn’t leave the house unarmed and he isn’t terrible skilled in diplomacy.
The MacGuffin here is a reel of original music Miles recorded in his home studio. The reel, coveted by Columbia Records, local hoods and Miles himself, becomes the excuse for everything that happens in the story. Davis seems to be having cash flow issues, but is reluctant to cede the one piece that would make him solvent. In fact, it’s a strong bet that Miles Davis had no intention of ever releasing another piece of original music. Maybe Don Cheadle has an idea of how Miles stayed alive.
While this biopic is clearly an octave above, say, Jimi: All Is by My Side, I found it lacking still. Don Cheadle respects the musician, but has chosen to portray the disturbed, raspy, Jheri-Curled has-been as entirely self-involved. We get occasional historical sneak peeks at 
how Miles’ personality undermined his own self-interests; we also get a great deal of Miles’ love and respect for compostition and creation; what we don’t get, necessarily, is what made him legend. If you knew nothing of Miles’ place in history, Miles Ahead isn’t going to help you there; mostly the film seems to imply his music is ideal for getting pretentious college kids laid and little else.
The best part of this film is the subtle implication that none of this actually happened; that this entire episode was entirely in Miles head – the latter as degenerative as his ailing hip. I don’t know what to make of that other than it gave a little depth to an otherwise blasé biopic.
♪(No lyrics, just a paradoy of jazz riff here)♫
Rated R, 100 Minutes
D: Don Cheadle
W: Steven Baigelman & Don Cheadle
Genre: Writer ‘n’ lunatic
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: I’d say Miles Davis himself, but it seemed he didn’t really like anything besides the wife he alienated
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Country music fans
♪ Parody inspired by “All Blues”
