Entertaining exploration of the life of a musical legend with a perfect lead.

Rating: 8/10 (21 April 2006)

The life and times of Ray Charles (Robinson) blind musical genius as well as a long time drug addict and womaniser.
I don't know how many music biographies I have seen, but I always think that they come with a certain amount of plus points and a certain amount of the reverse. However God knows how they could have made this if the central plank had been clean, sober and faithful. These are the only things that writer/director can get any mileage out of as he portrays RC as being beyond the pale musically and never wanted for a thing from his first hit onwards.
Musicians are sexy. Even blind ones. If you have a musical instrument in your hands the interest of women always increases. If you can play it and don't look like the Elephant Man then you are half way up to the bedroom already. If you a genius at it many women want to do you there and then! Charles fell in to the latter category and didn't say "no" all that often. Indeed he should have yearned to say "no" a few more times in his life generally, even though it would have prevent this film from being made. While exploration in life is fine some of us know that fire burns without putting our fingers in to the flames! Drugs may have helped in the early days (all those endless bus rides) -- but they soon started to pull him apart. The big band was partly a way of coasting through performances when he wasn't in much of a state to play. Not that is film wants to know about anything about that!
While not a RC record buyer he had a certain amount of entertainment value.You'd listen to him on the radio and not want to turn him off. On stage and in shape he was better. Not only a great piano player but a great voice (once he had found his own) and great soul. Like many great black men -- he had natural soul and all he had to do was let it out. A poor farming background rounding every lick and vocal in a way that the middle class white guy (like me) can't get close to.
Taylor Hackford has probably seen as many musical bios as I have and knows that if he falls asleep at the wheel he'll turn this in to movie of the week. Indeed there are times when it looks a bit like an expensive movie of the week as the obvious links (stock footage of cities as they were back then) and the rolling headlines flip across the screen. The fact that the film grain doesn't fit and the picture resolution is too good for newspapers shouldn't worry us to much. Nor should the perfectly tuned pianos that RC plays even in the early day dives! This is -- after all -- a movie.
Jamie Foxx is a sensation as Charles. You believe him for every frame. The shelf full of awards are a fair reward for his work, but he needs to remember that he'll never get a part like that again and that it is downhill all the way now! The support roles were also well played, but I didn't see anything as stand-out -- mostly because of the vested-interest thing. Good to see meaty parts for black women though.
(Your husband might be cheating on you -- but that is easier to bare when you are living in a fully paid for house in a nice neighbourhood. Although divorce came later -- skimmed over/misrepresented here -- the real divorce came early. She saw him as a beneficiary figure and formed her own life with their joint child.)
Was Charles cheated in his early years? -- did money go places it shouldn't? Yes, but that was normal. Just ask Chuck Berry. Being off-your-head on smack probably doesn't help with your bookkeeping either.
In most bio's there is a dip or a setback and then a period of comeback and then public recognition of what only a few knew all along. Not here. The career is plain sailing and the Georgia "ban" is fiction. (Why drop in a big lie in like that?) His change to country music (the biggest U-turn in music history?) does really matter because whatever he played he made his own. Like all the greats.
He lived a long life for someone who didn't look after himself (he always paid to have the best dope and the best dope dealers around -- it is the junk that they cut it with that normally kills you) and found applause from both white, black and everything that goes between. He deserved to be forgiven when one great gift (sight) was taken from him early. And if it is worth anything to you -- I forgive him myself.
A nice memory of a one-of-a-kind musician and a nice safeguard to his everlasting legacy. I now wonder whether they can make anything of the life of Stevie Wonder? A better artist -- but for film purposes didn't make as many of dramatic mistakes as Raymond.