Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Ray Charles was a giant. The night his death was announced, I watched his scene from THE BLUES BROTHERS a few times, one of the most joyous musical numbers in the history of film. I think Jamie Foxx has really come on strong as a dramatic actor in the last few years, surprising me immensely, and I’m curious to see how the goodwill around Charles carries over to this film:
Hey, Harry. Bungion Boy here with a review of the new Ray Charles biopic, Ray that screened last night in Manhattan. I believe it used to be called Unchain My Heart, but was probably re-titled after Charles died two weeks ago to sound more sentimental. Going into the screening I had really low expectations. I was really tired and when I heard someone mention that it was over 2 ½ hours long, I never thought I would never be able to sit through it. Now, having seen it, I’m glad I did. Sort of.
In my opinion, biopics are in a real sorry state these days. Last night I tried to think of one from recent years that I felt really got it right. Their most common problems come from the fact that the films are so full of too much detail, (I know, that shouldn’t be a bad thing) and constant recreations of events that are so famous that we’ve already seen the real footage dozens of times in TV clips or documentaries. Two films that have suffered from this the most from the last few years were Ali and especially Man on the Moon, which simply showed Jim Carrey recreating Kaufman doing his most famous routines. I know that given the choice between watching Carrey or Kaufman lip synch the Mighty Mouse song, I would rather just watch the real footage. That said, Ray was one of the first biopics that I’ve seen in a long time that actually felt like a movie, rather than just an homage.
What holds the film together is Jamie Fox’s performance. I’ve thought that Fox has had a lot of potential with pretty decent performances in mediocre films like Any Given Sunday and Ali. This is certainly his best performance to date and will hopefully open doors for him to make better films in the future. I really really hope Collateral is good. Part of the great appeal of Fox’s performance is that it’s a dead on imitation, so often I forgot that it wasn’t Charles, himself. Kind of like what Charlize Theron did in Monster last year. Good performance, great imitation. Clearly the studio is going to be pushing Fox for an Oscar nod, but I’m not sure that will happen, but who knows, it worked for Theron. There are other good performances in the film from Kerry Washington as Ray’s long suffering wife, and Curtis (Booger) Armstrong and Richard Schiff as Ray’s record producers. However almost all these are put on the sidelines to make this movie all about Fox.
The other thing that made me enjoy this “too long” movie was the music. I’m a pretty big fan of Charles’ music and there is a ton of it in here. Fox does a great job of lip-synching to them without it being distracting. There are also a lot of great montages of Charles’ music imitating his life, which is really effective as we get fewer long, boring scenes about his troubles with drugs and women, and more little music videos where the story is told within. Sadly there are still quite a few scenes that didn’t really need to be there. We see Charles scolded about drugs and women a few too many times.
The film also was a better than average period piece, with great art direction and cinematography with a beautiful color palate that actually made it feel like a portrait of the 1950’s. The colors alternate between bright and vibrant for some of the more fantasy-like sequences, to dim and stilted for the darker times.
Trust me, though, this film is far from perfect. Now the bad. The script is plagued by way too many bizarre flashback and dream sequences that always come at the most unnecessary times. Ray is haunted by the death of his younger brother and the only way that we really get to understand that for a long time is that Ray will be doing some normal thing like packing a suitcase, and then all of a sudden he’ll imagine that he’s pulling a child’s corpse out of the bag. The flashbacks also try to explain how he became blind, but does a terrible job. The ending is also way to abrupt, offering us a title card at the end saying “Over the next 40 years.... blah blah blah” making the film end on Ray conquering his drug addiction and ignoring anything that came after that. This wouldn’t be such a problem except that the editing really makes one feel like something was cut out and that they figured it was an ok note to end on. It is ok, but just ok. As a result of this, we never get to hear one of Charles’ funniest and one of my favorite songs, “Let’s Go Get Stoned.” But luckily we do get to hear most of the rest of his music and it sounds great. I don’t think I really care to see the movie again when it comes out in October, but I might get the soundtrack.
Overall, the film is…. pleasant. I can’t really call it great, or even terribly good, but I enjoyed myself a lot more than I expected. In terms of history about Charles, you would probably be better off just getting a Time or Newsweek or any of the dozens of magazines currently doing stories on his life. But for an entertaining flick, it’s worth a look for Fox’s performance and the great music. If neither of these things interest you, this one is probably not for you.
Thanks, man. Nice work.
"Moriarty" out.
