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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 26.62%
Worth A Look: 53.96%
Average: 12.23%
Pretty Bad: 5.04%
Total Crap: 2.16%
10 reviews, 79 user ratings
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| Ray |
by Erik Childress
"Who Is That Masked Man?"
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SCREENED AT THE 2004 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: It wasn’t until I was watching the film biography of Ray Charles that I realized how much I love his music. I’ve known it and listened to the rhythms for years. His great voice permeates the joy, pain and all the in-betweens of life. His songs, even as covers, were quintessentially Ray’s and no others. That is hardly true of Taylor Hackford’s new biopic, which chronicles the same ups, downs and landmark moments that encapsulate the majority of your average true-life film treatments. The only thing raising the decibel bar is an almost flawless performance by Jamie Foxx as the legendary superstar. The one flaw isn’t his fault, but it’s a major one.Hackford and screenwriter James L. White disregard what would have been a more powerful linear approach to the material and instead begin with Ray and his journey towards the Seattle jazz scene. Flashbacks will be used to fill-in-the-blanks along the way. On one of his first stops, a loud point is made of his introduction to another struggling musician named Quincy Jones (Larenz Tate), but since this is not called Ray & Quincy, it’s treated as more of a coincidence than an important beginning.
This is just Ray and it’s his struggle, punctuated by an early tragedy he may have been able to prevent and a punishment (as if from above) that will leave him without sight at the age of five. Ray finds his notes with a little inspiration from the mama (Sharon Warren) who told him there’d be hard times and he slowly works his way from ignored pianist to success with Atlantic Records. In-between there will be a loving, supportive wife (Kerry Washington), a love of heroin and several mistresses from the “Raelettes”, rumored to be named because they would have to “let Ray.”
There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about this except for Ray’s music, which has to be punctuated by what apparently served as its inspiration. True it may be as music has to come from somewhere (with the best usually masked in sorrow) but it’s mostly portrayed like a screenwriter trying to fit the drama into the music instead of the other way around. Or it’s just downright silly as revealed in the creation of “Hit The Road Jack” with Raelette #2, Margie Hendricks (Regina King, playing another in her repertoire of enraged black women – there’s a big freakin’ surprise.)
The screenplay never goes for outright sympathy. It never goes for much of anything for that matter; simply chugging along to the next pitstop or triumph of Ray’s life with little more than just expository dialogue to bridge the events. Maybe that’s how Ray was and would have wanted it. He may not have wanted understanding for his drug use as the film portrays it as more a simple vice than an addiction. Conceivably he didn’t want compassion for his eyes although no less than three occasions does he exploit his blindness to create faux pity for his advantage. It actually does the opposite by lessening our opinion of the man behind the voice.
All of this is just background noise though unable to engulf Foxx’s performance. From the first pan to his face, it’s almost impossible to divulge the man from the impostor. Foxx has been an impersonation chameleon throughout his career, but it takes more than just a few ticks and vocal patterns to pull off a caricature for two-and-a-half hours. This is a solo act from beginning-to-(almost)-end. The Oscar buzz is legit provided that they don’t submit the final minutes for his clip. Call it metaphor, fantasized hope or the most ill-conceived moment in American cinema, but Hackford creates one of the ten greatest sins ever captured on film when during a flashbacked reverie, Ray takes off his glasses and is given sight. Beyond the ludicrous nature of this creative choice, it does a great injustice to the performance itself. For 135 minutes we’ve been watching Ray Charles. When the glasses come off and the prosthetics are absent, we see Jamie Foxx.Ray (the film) is overly long and becomes more restless as it searches for a way to leave on an up-note. Instead we’re left on a sour note, quitting on us before ever getting to a performance of “America the Beautiful” or his role in The Blues Brothers. Not that the latter is particularly important to Charles’ life, but then again, neither is this film. Ray Charles certainly had a life worthy of exploration. Mainly because he recorded more songs and had a handicap that didn’t kill him. But are the ups-and-downs of famous people really that interesting? Couldn’t we just watch a Behind-the-Music and get the same greatest hits package in 100-less minutes than another dry, maybe-worthy-for-movie-of-the-week-status, biopic? As the great song says “Who knows better than I?” Probably Ray Charles and he already left us a legacy of music; one which speaks greater volumes than the film that borrows his name but not his soul.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10361&reviewer=198
originally posted: 10/29/04 14:02:46
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Starz Denver Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Starz Denver Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Toronto Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
29-Oct-2004 (PG-13)
DVD: 01-Feb-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
26-Jan-2005
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