{"id":40151,"date":"2023-06-21T11:02:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T15:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=40151"},"modified":"2023-06-21T11:04:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T15:04:36","slug":"mickey-hardaway-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/21\/mickey-hardaway-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Mickey Hardaway (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Director and Writer Marcellus Cox\u2019s \u201cMickey Hardaway\u201d took me back to a lot of other great character studies like \u201cAntwone Fisher<\/a>\u201d and \u201cOrdinary People<\/a>.\u201d Director and writer Cox really builds a compelling and interesting drama about a young man who is ultimately his own worst enemy. Director and writer Cox has a lot of story to tell, dealing in themes about being an artist, the frustrations of impostor syndrome, and learning to overcome past demons. While the film suffers a bit from some on the nose dialogue, it doesn\u2019t hinder what is a richly developed character drama that I was engaged with from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mickey Hardaway is a young sketch artist who agrees to a in-house therapy session with a well renowned psychiatrist at the behest of his girlfriend. Soon as he grapples with his past, his life begins sprawling out of control after years of physical and verbal abuse has finally taken a toll on him.<\/p>\n

Marcellus Cox is such a good filmmaker, often garnering some great performances all around. He stages some wonderful moments of pure raw conflict and emotional turmoil, with the help of his talented cast. Primarily there\u2019s Rashad Hunter who is very good as the titular protagonist. Mickey is a passionate artist who is prone to being a victim to his own insecurities and rage. He\u2019s a young man beaming with potential whose own cynicism toward life and humanity tends to become the film\u2019s central villain.<\/p>\n

Mickey is not a bad person but he\u2019s headed down a dark road; thankfully the writing from Marcellus Cox paired with Hunter\u2019s acting is so good that we root for him through the end. Director Cox is very good about utilizing aspects of the film medium, even implementing color in very creative ways. While the film is pretty much black and white, Cox surprises with the way he introduces flourishes of color in surprising methods. For most directors his introduction of color during the film would have been saccharine or trite, but the characters are so engaging that you\u2019re almost happy to see some sense of optimism leak in to the narrative. The entire collective cast is just top notch from Stephen Cofield Jr. to Ashley Parchment, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cMickey Hardaway\u201d is a very well directed and mesmerizing character piece, one that focuses on coming of age, growing up, and learning toward coming to grips with your past. \u201cMickey Hardaway\u201d is a real accomplishment, and a stellar drama I hope audiences seek out.<\/p>\n

Premiering on the West Coast at Dances With Films on June 29th<\/sup>, and will release digitally by Indie Rights on August 25th<\/sup>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director and Writer Marcellus Cox\u2019s \u201cMickey Hardaway\u201d took me back to a lot of other great character studies like \u201cAntwone Fisher\u201d and \u201cOrdinary People.\u201d Director and writer Cox really builds a compelling and interesting drama about a young man who is ultimately his own worst enemy. Director and writer Cox has a lot of story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[64,111,302,501],"class_list":["post-40151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-indie","category-movie-reviews","tag-adaptation","tag-arthouse","tag-drama","tag-indie-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40151"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40155,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40151\/revisions\/40155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}