Get On Up | Review

Touted as “The Godfather of Soul”,and offered called “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business”,  James Brown’s influence is unmistakable. He created a genre known as Funk,and an impression of him by comedian Eddie Murphy helped make Murphy a house hold name. His personal life was for the most part unknown until, and his past was a mystery but one thing was for certain James Brown was a star. The film opens on a seasoned James Brown as he is about to take the stage in all his flare, only to give a cut away to his child hood. We see his very troubled up bringing,and his love of music from an early age. His hard luck story goes from bad to worse after his mother leaves him,and his father abandons him at a brothel. Here he becomes a recruiter of men to the brothel if he gets enough he gets paid half a dollar. (literally)

He steals a suit which gets him sentenced to jail,and is left there by his make shift family in the brothel. He gets into music while spending time in jail,but unfortunately we are not privy to his musical influenced this would be good for the audience to know how he became himself. A misstep by the director and screen play writer at the cost of making a fast polished film. As the film goes on we see more of his life yet it seem like a cookie cutter version, no hint at the fact the Mick Jagger(who is a producer learned his dance moves from going to show after show of Jame Brown), or the fact the the biggest Pop star in the past 50 years (possible ever)  Michael Jackson learned and wanted to be a dancer based on seeing him dance. This is an important to show his influence on popular culture as well as the musical scene which is sorely missed in this film. Chadwick’s performance is exceptional,but the lack of proper direction of this film my over shadow in performance. The laughable moments were the wigs are clearly not put on right, were Bird’s prosthetic ears are not glued on right,and seemingly falling off. When the film makes deiced to break the fourth wall it seems just a lazy attempt to move the story along, rather than to add to the story. Though it is a welcomed changed to the very slow pace of the film it is very unsettling how the film makes just over look his drug use by just showing a small snippet of it does not show the full scope of the great man he was.

Verdict : Not worth seeing with a wealth of history from one the most influential musicians of all time they truly miss the mark, with miss placed lips singing cues,and terrible wigs. The random order mixed with the random breaking of the fourth wall only to randomly ignore the audience makes this in our opinion a film not worth seeing.