Don't let anyone turns you to cripple...

Rating: 8/10 (16 April 2012)

Ray is a deep psychological reflection on the life of the American jazz musician Ray Charles. The movie is no doubt a hit, in spit of all prejudices that precede it. For in 2 and half hours the filmmaker managed to put not only the story of a struggling man from the scum of the world to the very top, but he shows us too the birth of a new music, and the creation and unfold of a very intrigued psychological complex. So in the end of the day we might have to admit that Ray is a whole rounded cinema production.
As Jamie Foxx heading the cast and Taylor Hockford and James L. White as directors and writers, it's a movie that promises great deal, still it got its fair share of obstacles, for the movie has been rejected many times by the producing companies and that led to delay it for 2 years, a thing which personally stupefied me due to the apparent importance of the figure in question, let aside the well written scripts of the film. The movie deals with the raise of Ray Charles career, and his childhood which constructs fundamentally his character; starting with his mum strength,learning piano, his brother death whose guilt he'll bear for so long, and finally his eyes going blind. As most of the biopics, we got all these facts by the flashback techniques through out the movie. We'll witness too how this legendary musician sink into heroin addiction, fought back for his people and his own rights, and above all how he managed to cherish and forge his own music, which was regarded at first as sinful. At last, Hockford preferred to end his movie at the coming back home stage of Ray's life, where from he has been banded to sing after he refused once to sing in a segregated concerto.
Concerning Mr. Foxx, we should applaud him for his role which he bayed a great tribute, it was admiring how he managed to unified himself with the character and giving us the real flavor of Ray Charles. I can't think of better performance to the character, Foxx played most of the piano pieces of the movie, a thing that would lead us to think that his passion was so positively influential. There are on doubt other things distinguished the movie such as Whites' screenplay which was admiringly vivid and expressive. The cast as whole was clearly very committed. I think one of Rays' most effective hits was that it got to introduce us not only to the jazz music, for the movies is evidently filled up with it, but in one way or another it explained the context of the growth of this music.
Ray 2004 is the only cinema production dedicated to the African American musician Ray Charles and his works. So if you needed something soothingly inspiring go watch this movie, and if you already been through it, I'd still recommend you to go and take another look in it.
What really we like about the biopics is that they give us a cold shiver, they tell us explicitly, rather intimately what life means, and how we might react towards it. Ray mum's said to him once "remember! You might be blind but you ain't stupid", a metaphoric phrase that could bear a lot of analysis for all men are blind of experience but we are human beings we're by nature a claver species. Life condition may vary and battle fields may change, but mankind will always be the same. For that, successful biographical productions would always inspire us not hope, but courage to stand up to life and fall, and stand up again and fall again, and stand up again and fall again because that's the way it is.