It's always odd to watch a film that has only two or three genuinely great things about it that make the rest of the film look terrible. It's even more odd to watch when the rest of the film beyond these few things is actually kind of terrible. Such is the case with the James Brown biopic, Get On Up. Chadwick Boseman and Nelsan Ellis as so fantastic as Brown and Bobby Byrd...two musical giants that they reveal how dull and messy the rest of the film is. These two performances are among the best biopic performances of all time. I'm talking Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln or Jim Carrey in Man On The Moon level work here. However, I started to wish that the performances be less than they were. If the leads weren't so great, it would have been much less likely that I reflect on everything that's so wrong about the film. Boseman and Ellis embody these men with great passion, still smartly underplaying them. Too bad the film couldn't do the same.
The film is directed by Tate Taylor, who between this film, The Help and Pretty Ugly People, has established himself as a man who takes not just realistic but downright true stories and has a way of turning them into fantasies. This wouldn't be that bad of a thing if Taylor weren't so heavy handed about it. The screenplay is written by the Butterworth twins (Jez and John-Henry,) who wrote the under appreciated Edge Of Tomorrow from earlier this year and decided to write this film in that same world. If it sounds like I'm being too harsh about how much of a fantasy this films across as, consider this. There is a scene at the very beginning of this film in which Brown, a much older and loony man, goes into an insurance office. Brown has a private restroom there because the insurance office is "Man's World Insurance." When he discovers someone has done their business in his private restroom, he runs out to his truck, gets a shotgun and demands to know who.
There is a way to do that type of scene that would have been extremely effective. However, that scene turns Brown into a cartoon character. Boseman manages to get over that hurdle to some degree with his amazing portrayal but the film keeps weighing him down. One can see the strains on his face as he tries to make that scene anything more than laughable. I digress. Ellis is also fantastic as Bobby Byrd, Brown's right hand man who manages to stick by him through all the highs and all the lows, no matter how low the lows get. He gives significantly more depth and heart to the character of Byrd than there had any right to be and Ellis makes me want to see what he's going to do next with his film career.
This film also has a non-linear structure in which it will bounce from one part of Brown's life (his childhood, let's say) to another part (towards the end of his life, where he became crazy, let's say) without ever having a set path. While this does lend a somewhat unpredictable feeling to the film, it also comes across as desperate. Non-linear structure is fine if it doesn't feel so much like it's just there to add some substance. That's the feeling it has here and it ironically takes away a lot of the potential substance. Also, the film has that whole Jersey Boys talking directly to the camera concept going on. I'm not completely opposed to this concept but as with Jersey Boys, it feels out of place here and gives the film a bit of a non-cinematic feeling.
There is a scene towards the end of the film involving Brown and his estranged mother (Viola Davis) after one of his concerts. I do not want to give anything away but I do want to point out it is an extremely heartbreaking scene. This scene, as well as Boseman and Ellis's jaw dropping performances are so great that they made me realize just how great the film also could have been and ultimately wasn't.
(2 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug use, some strong language and violent situations)
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