Milkduds

Ray (8/10)

February 16th, 2005

Ray, starring Jamie Foxx, is a biopic about Ray Charles and his rise to music fame, despite the struggles and obstacles he faced. I really liked the movie, but I didn’t love it and I don’t think it deserves Best Picture at the Oscars, even though I haven’t seen all the nominees yet. I think the nomination is warranted, but I have a feeling that the other nominees are much better movies. However, I think Jamie Foxx will probably win Best Actor for his role as Ray Charles, but only by a hair over Leonardo DiCaprio. Foxx just blew me away in this movie - I had no idea he had it in him.

As far as a review of the movie, I have to give props to the writers and producers of the film for not pulling any punches in telling Ray Charles’ story. They could have made him out to be a victim of drugs, or fluffed over that whole aspect of his life, but they didn’t. I would almost go so far as to say that they painted Charles’ character in a bad light, until the very end of the movie. The acting was done very well by the whole cast - even the folks with little screen time. I was also suprised to see Curtis Armstrong (played Booger in Revenge of the Nerds) in a high profile movie like this. And of course, the music and soundtrack in the movie is awesome. There were a few times where they dubbed Charles voice over Foxx’s, but Foxx did appear to be singing for most of the time, and he did a good job. One way I could tell I liked the movie is that I wanted to see more at the end - and this is a 2.5 movie!

Entry Filed under: Movies