Product: Cadillac Records [Blu-ray] (2008)
Rating: 5.0
A great tribute to the fathers of Chicago Blues!
This movie is a great reference to a part of the history of American music that is way overlooked--Chicago Blues. Most people don't realize that Muddy Waters was, by way of musical lineage, one of the fathers of rock and roll. But the most important aspect of Muddy's (as well as that of Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, et al) place in musical history is the music itself--Chicago Blues. Even if rock and roll, heavy metal, and hip hop were never invented, these blues icons would still be marked in history for their achievements in Chicago blues music. 2003 was the 100th anniversary of the blues, and despite Martin Scorsese's noble effort in recognizing this with his PBS documentary of the Blues in that year, I didn't notice much of a blues revival stemming from that year. It's nice to have movies like this that remind us from time to time what the roots of American music really are!I was really impressed with the actors in this movie--they did a great job in portraying their respective characters, including their own singing, which was great! I was particularly impressed with the authenticity of Jeffrey Wright's both singing and acting aspects of the portrayal of Muddy Waters.Some of the details of this story are skewed for effect in this movie, I'm sure, but overall I found it faithful enough in its depiction of how it all came about and went. I must say, though, that I find it hard to believe that Howlin' Wolf actually threatened to kill Muddy if he stole any of his band members again. I know they were rivals, but I have trouble believing they hated each other that much--maybe I'm wrong--I was just surprised to hear something like that in the script.Adrien Brody does a fine job of portraying Leonard Chess, but Robert DeNiro would have been PERFECT. DeNiro even looks now a lot like Leonard Chess did back then (Brody is simply much younger than Chess was at the time), and I'm sure the makeup team would have had no problem in creating a dead ringer of Chess out of DeNiro! And Chess's legendary tough-guy type attitude? That's right down DeNiro's alley! But alas, I guess they couldn't afford DeNiro, as this was a pretty low-budget film.So despite the flak that this movie is getting in respect to authenticity, I'm giving it five stars, because it is in fact a very good movie and a great effort in preserving the memory of Chicago Blues!