Chadwick Boseman portraying James Brown might be be trying to ‘get on up’ but he can really ‘get on down.’ It’s not often someone embodies an icon’s body movements so much so – even down to the shoulder stiffness – that we can read into the character’s ‘soul’. Boseman, you might recall, became an instant star in the film 42 portraying Jackie Robinson….another icon whose sweat we could almost feel in the pitcher’s glove.
For this we follow the poverty-stricken-hell of young James Brown, abandoned by his mother (Viola Davis) to the eventual rise to fame and fortune…thanks to his manager, Ben Bart (Dan Ackroyd).
While he ends up with James Brown enterprises and even a spell in prison, the problem with these types of flawed to famed artists, is that when the money rolls in their past demons surface and they feel the world owes them everything. His dialog – whip smart and narcissistic “you wanna go down as the man who killed the funk?” shows us that he resides in his head…the same head he uses to escape the mother that left, the father that beat her, and the time in jail for stealing a blue suit only to find “karma” in being brought to the home of Aunt Honey (Octavia Spencer).
The story focuses, too, on the romance of brotherly love with his business partner and mate Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis) who is backup for his band the Flying Flames. The men meet when Bobby’s mother takes Brown under her wing after doing jail time for robbing a suit (he wanted to perform in). In the karma of his positive, and between green beans, corn bread and a new family, the new men soar to fame, until the alpha male kicks in.
The film is directed by Tate Taylor reuniting Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer from his Oscar nominated hit The Help, but this doesn’t have “the grove” which is ironically a scene in the film when James Brown discusses that inner burning sensation…the emotional rise… that makes his music make you want to dance…the film doesn’t. Years ago the same production company – Imagine – did Eminem’s Eight Mile which had all the heat, drive, passion and anger of a soulful rapper wrapped into a highly charged musical story.
In this, the journey jumps around a lot – past to present – so that as an audience we never quite latch onto anything. Only when the Martin Luther King scenes take place to we feel a bit of political pull and decision making, in an otherwise monotone movie. Brace Yourself, James: ♚ ♛ 1/2