WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Famed member of the "Rat Pack," singer of '70s hits like "The Candy Man," Sammy Davis Jr. _ who died in 1990 at 64 _ was so much more. This 2017 film by veteran documentary producer Samuel Pollard ("Eyes on the Prize," "ACORN and the Firestorm") covers a long career on the stage and screen, but especially explores Davis' long struggle to transcend race.
MY SAY: Figuring out where to start a biography on a major figure is hard enough, but consider the complications with Sammy Davis Jr. _ a 61-year career that began at age three, and spanned the chitlin' circuit to the big (and small) screen, with every stop in between. Davis did everything in show business, and did it particularly well, but director Sam Pollard decides to start with that iconic 1972 photo of Davis hugging Richard M. Nixon at the Republican National Convention.
This in fact just might be the best possible place to begin because everything in this remarkable life now seems reduced, unfairly, to that one snapshot. "I've Gotta Be Me" sizes up that electric moment, which infuriated African-Americans, and then methodically begins answering the "why."
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