FILMS

This Netflix project from writer-director Aaron Sorkin – creator of and writer of and – has been in the works for a long time, but it could hardly feel more vital in the year of Black Lives Matter and US police brutality towards protestors. The Chicago 7 were a group from different factions who were placed on trial following demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago. They were accused of conspiring to start a riot and placed on trial together, altogether many of them were previously unconnected – their number rising to eight with the addition of Black Panthers founder Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who at one point was ordered to be bound and gagged by authoritarian judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella, magisterially chilling). In this sober, informative and altogether old-fashioned piece (you can tell.