With the premiere of Marshall actor Chadwick Boseman has now played three cultural black icons. First there was James Brown the Godfather of Soul, then it was Jackie Robinson the first black player in modern times in major league baseball. Now it is Thurgood Marshall, but Marshall in his early days as a lawyer for the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People.

Thurgood Marshall in his career litigated many major civil rights cases including the most famous of all Brown vs. Board Of Education in 1954 that integrated the school system nationwide. Later on his career was capped by becoming the first black justice on the Supreme Court.

This story takes place in the late 30s by the music and the radio broadcasts with the news of the day. Thurgood Marshall has been sent to Connecticut to defend Sterling K. Brown a black chauffeur on a charge of raping his employer Kate Hudson.

This may be the north, but the racial attitudes in Greenwich, Connecticut are only more subdued than they are in Alabama. Fairfield County in those days in the richer suburban towns are pretty bad. You remember from Auntie Mame the phrase, Aryan from Darien. They're not crazy about Jews either.

Marshall being an outsider to the state has to be admitted to the Connecticut bar. Local attorney Sam Friedman played by Josh Gad is the lead counsel temporarily and the first motion is to get Marshall admitted. That is usually a pro forma thing, note how Matt Damon has to be admitted to the bar in Tennessee in The Rainmaker.

Such courtesy is denied Marshall by Judge James Cromwell. But he's allowed to sit at the defense table and coach Friedman. Despite a few curves thrown at the defense Gad who only did civil cases before this for insurance companies proves to be a pretty good advocate.

Boseman steps up to his role just as he did with Jackie Robinson and James Brown. He also has some wonderful domestic scenes with his wife Keesha Sharp and at a nightclub with Jussie Smollett and Chilli Thomas as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Good performances you think these are the real people.

Thurgood Marshall was also portrayed on screen by Sidney Poitier in the film Separate But Equal dealing with the school integration cases right up to the Supreme Court. These two really ought to be seen back to back for a full assessment of Marshall's career.

In his time when Lyndon Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court it wasn't just race that made Marshall's appointment unique. It was the whole level of experience in the kind of law he practiced for people like Sterling K. Brown. The goal is justice and the law has to work for all for justice to be realized.

Marshall is a film not to be missed.

It's 1941. Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) travels the country as NAACP's only lawyer crusading for black defendants against the racist justice system. His next case is in Greenwich, Connecticut where rich housewife Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson) has accused her driver Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown) of raping her. Insurance lawyer Sam Friedman (Josh Gad) is recruited. He's reluctant and on top of that, Judge Foster (James Cromwell) refuses to accept Marshall into the local state bar. With Marshall silenced in court and with no criminal court experience, Friedman has to battle entitled prosecutor Loren Willis (Dan Stevens).

This is a biodrama of one particular case with future Supreme Court judge Marshall. The story is compelling and the history is fascinating. The actors are all first rate. The actual court case does have some awkward turns. It's a thin line between blaming the victim and searching for the truth. It may help to definitively declare Spell as innocent from the start. This shouldn't be a courtroom mystery and should skew more towards underdog courtroom drama. If Marshall gets the truth from Spell at the beginning, he would come out looking even better. There are a lot of twisting that reminds me too much of a TV courtroom drama. I do love a lot of this movie but little things keep bugging me. For example, I love the kitchen knife joke but their kiss after temple strikes me as too much. I prefer a knowing touch and a sweet smile for her husband to drive home that scene much better. None of the little issues prevent me from really enjoying this well-acted compelling historical drama.

Thurgood Marshall was a legendary lawyer who became the first black judge in the US Supreme Court.

Their is a good film to be made about his life, this is not it.

Marshall focuses in one attempted murder case that he was involved in back in 1941 when he was a lawyer for the NAACP.

It really is a modern version of To Kill a Mockingbird. A black man Joseph Spell is accused of raping a respectable married white woman who employed him. Spell then threw her off a bridge and left her to die.

Marshall comes to Connecticut and teams up with a reluctant Jewish insurance lawyer Sam Friedman because the judge would not allow Marshall to be lead counsel.

It is an effective courtroom drama, especially as Friedman is an inexperienced criminal lawyer who slowly discovers that there is more to law than insurance litigation.

Chadwick Boseman shines as Marshall but there is nothing groundbreaking here as Marshall leads Friedman into the nuances of criminal litigation.