Marshall (2017)

The 1940s legal thriller “Marshall” is a solid drama that gives viewers a glimpse into an alternate universe—one where African-American actors could be treated as old school movie stars, in period pieces that are less concerned with giving audiences a solemn, Oscar-baiting history lesson than an entertaining story that happens to be drawn from life.

Chadwick Boseman, Hollywood’s go-to guy for playing important Black Americans, adds another icon to his gallery: NAACP attorney and future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, a New Yorker dispatched to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to defend a black man, Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), who stands accused of the rape and attempted murder of a white society woman, Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson). Filmmaker Reginald Hudlin(“House Party,” “Boomerang”) adapts a script by the father-son screenwriting team of Michael and Jacob Koskoff that jumps off from a real case. Many of the most seemingly outrageous twists are pulled from the record.