Ray

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By Todd Karella
October 29, 2004

Movie-Pix Best Guess:

Original Story Synopsis:

A film about the life and times of Ray Charles as he struggles from a poor young boy to become one of the world's most famous musicians.

Jamie Foxx does an unbelievable job at portraying the man. He has his voice and mannerisms down pat and looks to be an award-winning performance.

Best Guess Results:

Jamie Foxx does such a tremendous job portraying Ray Charles that you don't even realize it's not him.

Unfortunately, the story is not nearly as fulfilling as the acting.

While the film is nearly two and a half hours long, there are just too many issues that never get fully explored as you go from event to event only grazing the surface.

The movie itself concludes with only a mere mention of the last 40 years of his life.

Rated PG-13

~Leaves you wanting more~

Movie-Pix Hit or Miss

Whether you liked this film or not, you've got to give Jamie Foxx a tremendous amount of credit on an Oscar-worthy performance. If you didn't know that he was an actor, you would have thought you were watching Ray Charles the entire time. To get into character Foxx spent 14 hours a day wearing prosthetics during the filming and was in fact blind.
   While the performances were riveting, the story failed to focus on any particular aspect of the musical legend's career leaving the audience feeling a little short changed.
   At age 7 Ray began to lose his sight, but not before witnessing his little brother’s accidental drowning, an event that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
   While most mothers would have been devastated by the tragedies befalling her only children, Aretha (Sharon Warren) was an unbelievably strong

The film then skips ahead 10 years to after his mother’s passing and he goes on the road for the first time as a musician.
   His first group is a Good Ol’ Boy country band who is shocked to see a black kid stepping off the bus. But once they hear him play everything is fine.
   There are certainly a lot of opportunities for some good stories here, but the film chooses to gloss over this part of his life and move forward to his next job.
   As Ray steps off the bus he meets a young Quincy Jones (Larenz Tate) who is too young to get into the club and thinks

   While on the road with his band, Ray gets into heroine use. Not by accident or because he doesn’t know better, but simply because he wants to be one of the guys. Even the members of the band who are giving him the drugs tell him how terrible they are, but still he doesn’t listen.
   Ray’s career begins to take off as his skills and talents get more exposure. He falls in love with Della Bea (Kerry Washington) a preacher’s daughter, and starts his own family.
   Shortly afterwards, he gets a record deal with Atlantic Records. The only problem is that he doesn’t have his own voice. Up until this point he’s always been an imitator of such people as Nat Cole and now needs to find something new and create his own sound.
   His sound turns out to be a combination of Jazz and Gospel. This does not sit well with his young bride or anyone else in the religious community, but the young kids love it and his records soar up the charts.

Again the film fails to expand on an important aspect of his career and moves quickly to something else.
As his fame grows, so do his problems. His drug addiction is out of control. The police have arrested him for drug possession. His extramarital affairs are hurting his wife. His new manager is pushing away all of his longtime friends.
The final straw is when he gets the call that his ex-mistress has died from a drug overdose. Once he hits rock bottom he decides to go to rehab and get clean.

That’s where the film ends. It’s the early ‘60s and there’s 40 more years in the man’s life. Forty years of awards and records that receive only a passing mention during a collage of all his album covers.
While the performances were great, the film leaves you wanting some substance that you can sink your teeth into. Instead it leaves you unfulfilled as if you were expecting steak for dinner and got meatloaf instead.

Jamie Foxx-Ray Charles

Ray's busted for posession of heroine

Ray learns to play

The Atlantic Record Execs

person. She made it her responsibility to make sure that Ray was self-sufficient and knew how to count steps and listen to sounds before he went completely blind at the age of 9.
As his sight began to fail his hearing started to compensate for his loss, not only for normal every day sounds, but for music as well.

he can sneak in with him. The two strike up a life-long friendship. Since Quincy shows up so rarely and does even less it’s a wonder why he’s in it at all other than to name drop.
Even though Ray’s a brilliant musician people underestimate him, thinking that since he’s blind he must also be dumb. They are constantly making side deals with clubs and promoters or trying such scams as paying him in $1 bills and telling him that they are fives and tens. After the first time he demands to be paid in nothing but $1 bills.
Whenever Ray finds that he’s being cheated and lied to he cuts his losses and removes himself from the guilty parties.