Ray

Rating: 8/10 (5 June 2007)

When I heard about this true story film about one of the finest black American musicians of all time, and it winning the Academy Award for Best Actor, I had to see it, from Oscar nominated director Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentlemen, The Devil's Advocate). Basically Ray Charles (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe winning Jamie Foxx) accomplished his dream of becoming an international star by the 1960's, getting a record deal and producing some of the most iconic songs for the jazz genre. Through flashbacks we see how the African American child Ray started losing his eye-sight at seven years old while living in Northern Florida, and how he and his mother Aretha Robinson (Sharon Warren) coped with it. His mother taught him that he had to make his own way in the world, which explains how he mastered playing the piano without sight and working his way around. Ray started touring the Southern musical circuit with his great pioneering, he took some of the most well known gospel songs and incorporated into a jazz and near and rock and roll style, as well as creating a little country and western. Throughout his success he meets and marries Della Bea Robinson (Kerry Washington) and has two sons and daughter, but when he forms a new three piece backing group to join him on stage he calls The Raylettes he starts an affair with one of the members, Margie Hendricks (Regina King). While in the height of his success Ray has started using heroin and it has become an addiction, and then he finds out that Margie is pregnant and doesn't to get rid of it, and he also has to deal with the rise of racism. The final text says that he did beat his battle of heroin addiction, and stayed a highly successful worldwide sensation, all the way until his tragic death in 2004 from liver failure. Also starring Clifton Powell as Jeff Brown, Aunjanue Ellis as Mary Ann Fisher, Harry Lennix as Joe Adams, Crash's Terrence Howard as Gossie McGee, Larenz Tate as Quincy Jones, Bokeem Woodbine as Fathead Newman, Richard Schiff as Jerry Wexler and Warwick Davis as Oberon. The performance by Foxx is terrific, most of the supporting cast members have really good scenes too, the gritty real-life stuff such as poverty and tragedy does grip you, and of course the fantastic songs like "Mess Around", "I Got a Woman" and "Hit the Road Jack", it a biographical music drama to be seen. It won the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing, and it was nominated for Best Costume Design, Best Editing and Best Motion Picture of the Year, it won the BAFTA for Best Sound, and it was nominated for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music for Craig Armstrong and Best Original Screenplay, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. It was number 99 on 100 Years, 100 Cheers. Very good!