One is a decision by the sitting judge ( James Cromwell), an imperious old white man who doesn’t appreciate having a cocky black New Yorker in his court, to turn Marshall into a mute bystander by declaring that only attorneys licensed to practice law in Connecticut can argue before his bench. Many of the most seemingly outrageous twists are pulled from the record. 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. Brown), who stands accused of the rape and attempted murder of a white society woman, Eleanor Strubing ( Kate Hudson). 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.
