some good acting, great music, an all-too shoddy script

Rating: 6/10 (14 January 2006)

The more I watch Ray- it plays a lot on the HBO channels on TV- the more I get the sense that the film could've been better than what was deserved. Taylor Hackford's direction is slick at times, and has a decent hand-held quality, but at times its all for things all too typical in a musician's life ala biography movie. Hackford puts through a non-linear structure in the story, but it doesn't really work to make a real dramatic advantage. Hackford puts in scenes from Ray Charles's childhood into moments that pump up the melodrama (if that's the right word) into being too manipulative for its own good. There are also elements in Charles's childhood that could've been used better for the sake of the story, to help make it clearer about what drove Charles to his demons. 2005's film Walk the Line, not to make too close a comparison, dealt with the subject matter straight on. The film Ray juggles with its subjects over the course of 1948 to the late 1960's with almost too much to show.
And, in a way, the film is watchable despite its flaws in the structure and repetitiveness (for a good chunk of the film its really just 'Ray takes junk, Ray cheats on his wife, Ray makes hits, Ray takes junk, Ray has a flashback, etc'). Ray Charles's music is remarkable, inspiring, and stands against music of today as being almost good for the soul even as early on it was called 'devil's music' (i.e. combining blues and gospel, which took some getting used to for people in the 50's). There's rarely a song of his, at least shown in the film, that isn't worth listening to, as it crosses racial divides (and there's a mention of that in the film, nothing too big) bringing the power and soul of his music for everyone (and not just his R&B stuff but even his more country-type music). At the least, the musical performance scenes are worth checking out the movie alone.
There's also a certain complexity- or lack thereof- in Jamie Foxx's portrayal. The problem also lies on the bordering of just an imitation of Charles versus a performance. Sometimes Foxx channels in and just does a good acting job, but there are perhaps too many moments and scenes where its too much bordering on parody. I don't meant to downplay it too much; he does do what he can with the material, and apparently prepared extensively for his role by being around Charles and playing the piano for real. There is talent in his work in the film, but it sometimes can't over-come the direction or script. For example, the last twenty minutes or so of the film are a mess; a 'trippy' kind of sequence showing Charles kicking junk, followed by a symbolic forgiving of Charles with his mother. This is just poor film-making to me, as a filmmaker running out of a better way to make a catharsis. That the film has to stop at the point it does doesn't leave much room for other options.
I don't deny there is potential in the film, that the music alone makes it worth seeing at least one (if your already a fan for sure, but even if not the music may turn you on to some of his lesser heard recordings), and that there are some impressive acting scenes (Regina King is terrific in her scenes, for example). But there is too much left unexplained, and not for the good of ambiguity's sake, and over-length tends to creep in on it too. It's the kind of film I end up watching anyway now on TV, as its an 'easy' film to watch, however not with the sort of complexity that could've been put into the story.