Sing It Out

I've done some research since I saw Cadillac Records two weeks ago, and I'm learning that it's taken some considerable liberties with the time and the story. If I were a blues aficionado, this probably would bother me more. Since I'm not, I'm sticking with my initial reaction to the film, which was ...

I really, really liked Cadillac Records; it was an unexpected, underrated treat. Josee suggested it at the last minute for my birthday celebration, and it was a far better (and shorter) fit than our initial plan to see Australia. Cadillac Records made me miss my father, too: We saw Ray together a few years ago on one of our father/daughter outings. He'd really like this, but he doesn't go to movies by himself. Come on, Dad - get Mom to take you then.

Like the most manic concert, Cadillac Records swoops and soars; hips will swivel during the tale of a Chicago blues label’s rise and fall. Although the film hits some bum notes in its storytelling and fidelity to history, it has a dynamism few flicks have matched this year.

First - the brilliance that is Jeffrey Wright. He played Colin Powell this fall, in W; his career includes turns as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Martin Luther King Jr., the villain in the Shaft remake and Felix in the last two Bond movies. Here, as Muddy Waters, Wright does some of the best work of his career. Where is his Oscar buzz?

It's not that Wright looks or sounds like the blues great, the first major discovery for Chess Records co-founder Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody). Rather, it's how he embodies Waters as the man goes from sharecropper to success, pleased with the Cadillacs bestowed on him but wary about the missing profits. (Writer/director Darnell Martin glosses more than she should here.) He's a lousy husband to Geneva (Gabrielle Union), but a combustible pull links them. Even while wearing a do-rag best saved for a day at the beauty shop, Wright is the “cat men want to be and women want to be with.”

Joining Wright in the fierce and fiery department: surprisingly, Beyonce Knowles. Previously, in such work as Dreamgirls and The Fighting Temptations, the singer/actress just posed before the camera. As Etta James, Knowles doesn't just break free from her glass box - she incinerates her self-imposed prison. She's ballsy, she delivers searing interpretations of James' hits (feel the rage in “All I Could Do Was Cry”) - she's mad as hell and she's not going to take it anymore. Knowles especially conveys James' bitter heartbreak after a long-awaited meeting with her biological father goes awry. Knowles has adopted the persona "Sasha Fierce" in her day job; now we see its origins.

In fact, Cadillac Records contains an album's worth of acting hits: Columbus Short as troubled harmonica great Little Walter, Eamonn Walker as powerful blues man Howlin' Wolf, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon (who also “narrates,” in a way bordering on cutesy-folksy).

The problem with this abundance of riches is that Martin doesn't know how to harness everything, and she sacrifices story streamlining for simply more story. The entire Berry segment feels shoehorned, despite Def’s playful, Gumby-like antics. Walker mesmerizes - he has a smoldering, scary come-hither nod - but his screen time feels shortchanged, and we don’t really have a true sense of the relationship between Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Martin also ignores the role of Leonard Chess’ still-living brother in the creation of the record label. Perhaps his story wasn’t dramatic enough.

Music biopics are a genre cliché (Ray, Walk the Line, La Bamba ...), so films of this subject must find ways to distinguish themselves. Cadillac Records does so with its platinum lead actor, Wright, and its gold-standard ensemble. Flaws and all, this movie sings.