Aaron Sorkin’s greatest strengths as a writer and a filmmaker are also his greatest weaknesses, but he’s probably the kind of idealistic voice the world needs right now. This is never truer than in watching THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, which is verbose and passionate and well-performed while also being idealistic and romanticised almost to the point of parody. It’s a fascinating and important period of American history to cover, but for some reason Sorkin felt it necessary to leave some of the more unbelievable (but true) events of the trial of Vietnam War protestors accused of inciting a riot in Chicago and invent his own less interesting (untrue) embellishments. It’s all very nice looking and sounding and the performances, particularly from Mark Rylance and Yahya Abdul-Mateen impress, but this does nothing particularly revolutionary or challenging and you’re left thinking, “good, but not great”. SSP