Product: Cadillac Records [Blu-ray] (2008)
Rating: 4.0
Likeable Film But.....Got To Deal With The Facts
As with many pop music history enthusiasts looking forward to this film I myself was up and rearing to go when it finally came out on DVD.I mean Adrian Brody,Jeffrey Wright?MAN it had the makings for a classic and Beyonce',someone I feel suffers from mass self imposed over exposure,actually got me interested to see her performance as Etta James,even if obviously she is very wrong for the film in terms of waistline. So.....my dad rented it and decided after watching it,while it had it's good points it pressed the point of racial violence a little too heavy for his book;there is one scene here that is particularly unpleasant but I decided to give the DVD a whirl myself. Well...the violence didn't upset me as much as another point made by reviewers this doesn't have 100% historical accuracy. Then again......neither did other music doc's I've loved such asThe Temptations. What you'll see in this movie is how the rough and tumble lives of these early R&B; and rock n roll pioneers such as Muddy Waters,performed wonderfully by Wright but also Willie Dixon,Howlin' Wolf and of course Beyonce's Etta. Of course the character who gets the most sketched out is Columbus Short,a great actor as well as Little Walter,a character whose short fuse and self victimizing nature get's the most overall screen time hear and results in many the films most "R" rated moments.Whereas everyone else pretty much underplayed their roles. The films plot revolved primarily around the personal and professional tentions as Cedric The Entertainer as Dixon provides the occasional narration,all while music history is being made and rock n roll history is being created from the ground up as various blues styles are clashing with electricity and post war cultural standards are changing all the roles.I would've preferred to see more of that history making aspect played up.But this was a story about the people.That brings me to the main thing that may either draw you to or away from this;there's an undercurrent of negativity to this as civil rights and personal struglles are the main focus and the emphasis tend to be on mainly on the beginning of the whole "sex,drugs and rock n roll" aspects of the culture. Just a look at how the history of Chuck Berry,performed in a great puckish way by Mos Def and Etta James. Strangly where it should be intense the film ebbs;the lead character of the factually barnstorming Leonard Chess (whose brother Phil isn't even mentioned here,not to mention Chess staple Bo Diddly) is portrayed too nuanced by Brody.Not to knock a good actor but the role required a lot more emotionalism and loudness then it was given.But that may be picking nits. Many musical biopics such as this have taken huge factual leaps for the same of dramatic content. Sometimes it utterly ruins the film,sometimes it almost saves it and other times no one's going to give a care. With me it's 50/50.While I'd have loved to see an honest,fact based story about this subject there's always going to be the "entertainment factor" of the old Hollywood clishe. So it's good for what it is but for a truly accurate and often very entertaining look at the real history of Chess Records look for the PBS documentary 'Record Row:The Cradle Of Rhythm & Blues',narrated by Etta James herself.I have it on VHS but if you didn't happen to catch it-it's pretty rare these days,this will have to do.