Tate Taylor (PRETTY UGLY PEOPLE, THE HELP) directs this James Brown biopic, which follows the music legend from his poverty stricken childhood, born in, literally, a one room shack, to being raised by prostitutes and hustlers after being pawned off by a father with the inability to bring him up.
After an arrest for trying to steal a suit, James ends up in prison, and it's there that the root of his musical ambitions truly take hold, when he meets Bobby Bird, a visiting singer. Soon, the two become friends, and Byrd's family takes the needy James into their family fold. Sooner than you can say "Hit me!" Byrd and James are off to carousing and making waives on the chitlin' circuit, eventually making serious inways to pop music, a form of music almost strictly commandeered by white folks.
GET ON UP chronicles all the big moments, and the rise to fame, fortune, and sometimes infamy, with a deft sure hand, and for the most part unflinching, and accurate eye. It's a period piece rock and roll movie that belongs on the shelf right next to AMERICAN HOT WAX, and THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY.
Amazing, and I mean a-ma-zing performances from Chadwick Boseman (soon to be lost to the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he will become the BLACK PANTHER) as James Brown, Nelsan Ellis as Brown's music partner and kicked-around sidekick Bobby Byrd, Viola Davis as brown's long suffering but supportive wife Susie, and Dan Aykroyd as white manager and long time believer in da funk, Ben Bart, anchor this movie, and elevate it from something that could easily have been tawdry melodrama, given the history of it's subject.
GET ON UP lands in my Top ten of 2014, and if you love James Brown like I do, or even if you don't, this is a film to be not only seen, but felt and most of all, heard!
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
~Sean Smithson
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