The life and times of legendary musician/dancer James Brown told in nonlinear excerpts-from-a-life, rather than any bog-standard birth-to-death, story-form.
There has been many recent musical bio-pics, so much so that a satire films have appeared about them such as Walk Hard. In such an atmosphere Tate Taylor has attempted to be different and non conventional but a lot of the time he is merely confusing, muddled and somewhat over-flashy. Moreover the movie looks like it was edited by running over the footage with a lawnmower and gluing it back at random. Flashback and flashback again was used so often that I lost track of where the movie variation on "now" was!
Starting at the beginning (although not for this film!) While his (Brown's) father was violent and irresponsible you get the feeling he is being short changed. He did try and bring up his son rather than run away. Give him some marks for effort.
However it is used (I believe) as an opening excuse for the behaviour he (Brown Snr) later displayed himself. Not that endless contradictions aren't part of this story, indeed you feel there is a sort of cop-out feel that it can't take any form of moral line. He was both anti-drugs and anti-delinquency apart from in his own actions and his own life. Dare anyone say it, the man had serious mental problems. Because if he wasn't bipolar nobody ever was or will be.
Don't give me the "it was all the drugs" line as if the character wasn't underneath. Indeed drugs, firearms and his huge ego could easily have got him killed in the street. Bizarrely he paints himself as a victim (in real life) when on a violent rampage. I rest my case.
Let's get off this merry-go-round of confusion and onto solid ground: Brown never left an audience member bored and his songs have passion and soul. We can get this from a concert CD/DVD with the real thing and Chadwick Boseman isn't anything like as good. Nor does he look much like him either (too tall).
Brown actually knew little about music and and even his voice wasn't the greatest in range. Indeed I'm not even sure he could have carried a proper harmonic ballad. Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding could have wiped the floor with him on a soul standard. Rather in the manner of Liberace he became important because he told people he was important and people bought into it.
(People who refer to themselves in the third party turn my stomach. If Jesus returned from the grave he wouldn't do it.)
Despite its faults this is an entertaining enough piece. Wouldn't want to sit through it again and - as I say - it is a shame that the editing is such a mess. All movies need narrative and even though we are dealing with a real life a bit of fiction or guesswork is better than lurching around from one unrelated scene to another with no sense of where you are going or why...
There has been many recent musical bio-pics, so much so that a satire films have appeared about them such as Walk Hard. In such an atmosphere Tate Taylor has attempted to be different and non conventional but a lot of the time he is merely confusing, muddled and somewhat over-flashy. Moreover the movie looks like it was edited by running over the footage with a lawnmower and gluing it back at random. Flashback and flashback again was used so often that I lost track of where the movie variation on "now" was!
Starting at the beginning (although not for this film!) While his (Brown's) father was violent and irresponsible you get the feeling he is being short changed. He did try and bring up his son rather than run away. Give him some marks for effort.
However it is used (I believe) as an opening excuse for the behaviour he (Brown Snr) later displayed himself. Not that endless contradictions aren't part of this story, indeed you feel there is a sort of cop-out feel that it can't take any form of moral line. He was both anti-drugs and anti-delinquency apart from in his own actions and his own life. Dare anyone say it, the man had serious mental problems. Because if he wasn't bipolar nobody ever was or will be.
Don't give me the "it was all the drugs" line as if the character wasn't underneath. Indeed drugs, firearms and his huge ego could easily have got him killed in the street. Bizarrely he paints himself as a victim (in real life) when on a violent rampage. I rest my case.
Let's get off this merry-go-round of confusion and onto solid ground: Brown never left an audience member bored and his songs have passion and soul. We can get this from a concert CD/DVD with the real thing and Chadwick Boseman isn't anything like as good. Nor does he look much like him either (too tall).
Brown actually knew little about music and and even his voice wasn't the greatest in range. Indeed I'm not even sure he could have carried a proper harmonic ballad. Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding could have wiped the floor with him on a soul standard. Rather in the manner of Liberace he became important because he told people he was important and people bought into it.
(People who refer to themselves in the third party turn my stomach. If Jesus returned from the grave he wouldn't do it.)
Despite its faults this is an entertaining enough piece. Wouldn't want to sit through it again and - as I say - it is a shame that the editing is such a mess. All movies need narrative and even though we are dealing with a real life a bit of fiction or guesswork is better than lurching around from one unrelated scene to another with no sense of where you are going or why...