Bob Marley: One Love film review – Fearless acting is let down by a toothless script

In director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s reverential biopic of Bob Marley, the reggae singer travels to late 1970s’ London with his entourage to begin work on a new album. “I wanna make a record that can shake up the place,” he vows, having recently survived an assassination attempt in Kingston, Jamaica.

Bob Marley: One Love doesn’t shake up the place. Produced in partnership with the singer’s family, Green’s polite and conventional portrait of a trailblazing artist slips on a pair of kid gloves to recreate a fertile period when Bob Marley and the Wailers recorded the LP Exodus and captured the peace-loving spirit of the era with the song Three Little Birds and its infectious chorus, “Don’t worry about a thing, Cause every little thing gonna be alright.”

Fans of Marley don’t need to worry about Kingsley Ben-Adir’s fearless portrayal of their musical hero. With a full head of cascading dreadlocks and thick Jamaican patois, the London born actor vanishes completely within his charismatic showman during electrifying concert performances.

The script shortchanges Lashana Lynch as Marley’s steadfast spouse, who protests: “I have to be a wife and a soldier.”

If Green’s picture harnessed some of that fighting spirit, we’d be jamming.

Bob Marley: One Love is out now in cinemas