Oscar For Sure

Rating: 5/10 (9 February 2007)

Well it's that time of year again for Hollywood to go all sincere and provide earnest performances, inspirational stories and the usual Oscar bait. Dreamgirls certainly ticks all the boxes necessary and for the first hour it provides a lot more. The opening is superb and draws you in straight away and all the Dreamgirls are charismatic and likable, Murphy is superb as Jimmy Early, Foxx as the devious manager and Glover as an old school promoter also play their part. But after a bright and breezy 40 mins the film starts to drag, issues are skipped over. Race issues are touched upon, the tangle of relationships of the girls is also given a bit of time but nothing seems to come into focus. Add to this what is meant to be a rousing conclusion and I cant help but think that Dreamgirls is a plastic Oscar product.
Having said that the songs are superb and all performed extremely well and anyone into the Motown sound will get a kick out of spotting the sound a likes. But for a film that focuses on singers with real soul its a quality surprisingly lacking in the film itself.
6/10 - Probably an Oscar winner but in a few years it will be long forgotten.