Hollywood threw a big birthday party for Bob Marley on February 6 with the release of his biopic at Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles. A swell of A-listers turned out to see Bob Marley: One Love, which stars British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir as the reggae legend.

Ben-Adir walked the red carpet along with members of the Marley family, including Marley’s eldest son Ziggy and his wife Orly; Island Records founder Chris Blackwell; Stevie Wonder; Shaggy; Kelly Rowland; and Brad Pitt, the film’s executive producer.

Wayne Jobson, a close friend of Blackwell’s, also attended the ritzy event. He described the movie as, “Amazing! I love the film.”

Filmed in London and Kingston, Bob Marley: One Love is directed by American Reinaldo Marcus Green. It tracks Marley’s life from December 1976 when he was shot in Kingston, to his self-imposed exile in London in 1977, and early 1978 when he returned to Jamaica for the One Love Peace Concert.

He died of cancer at age 36 in May 1981.

Jobson believes the producers did a good job capturing that dramatic period of the superstar’s life perfectly.

“Ziggy Marley said the most important thing about the film is the message. It shows Bob’s turmoil, having being rejected by his father and abandoned in Trench Town, and all the struggles that he went through, yet still ending up filled with love and spreading it around the planet. It shows Bob’s spiritual side that lifted him to prophet-like status worldwide but also that he was still a human. The scene where he beats up his manager, Don Taylor, shows that he still had a rough side. Even though the Marley family produced the film, they did not pull any punches, and show the fights with Rita when she told him, ‘I knew you from you had one shirt!’ ”Jobson told the Jamaica Observer.

Bob Marley: One Love reportedly cost Paramount Pictures over US$100 million to produce.

It has several Jamaicans in minor roles, including Hector Lewis as Wailers drummer Carlton Barrett and Naomi Cowan as Marcia Griffiths, a member of The I Three, Marley’s harmony group.

The movie, which had its Jamaican premiere at Carib Cinema on January 23, opens worldwide on February 14.