It's Taylor Hackford, Stupid!

Rating: Null/10 (5 February 2007)

I've read some really bad and good criticism of Taylor Hackford's Ray and the "rinse and repeat" comment on the message boards rings true, sort of. Hackford manages to beautifully film brilliant performances and some of the great, great music of our time . . . and almost loses it in his trademark soap suds.
Like Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash, Jamie Foxx breathes youth into Ray Charles, a man of intense vibrancy. At times I really believed I was watching Charles punching through genre and race barriers while sinking into morphine-derived self-pity. But the episodic nature of Hackford's pacing helps distract the viewer from the deeper truth of Charles' life. Ray Charles was a giant talent, but a man nonetheless. Hackford keeps slipping into suds and slickery and it almost sucks the oxygen out of Ray's lungs.
Yet, it's the flawless editing of Charles' music into Foxx's mouth that keeps you glued to the screen. It's so real that you want to forgive the flaws of direction and screen writing.
I say we cut Hackford some slack and thank him--and Foxx--for documenting one America's great performers of the last sixty years.