Ray (2004)
Genre: Biography / Music
Duration: 152 minuten / 178 minuten (extended version)
Country:
United States
Directed by: Taylor Hackford
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Regina King and Kerry Washington
IMDb score:
7,7 (164.794)
Releasedate: 29 October 2004
Ray plot
"The extraordinary life story of Ray Charles."
Ray Charles Robinson, better known as Ray Charles, was born in 1930 in Albany, Georgia. Two tragic events had a major impact on his career: he went blind when he was seven and lost his parents when he was fifteen. He learned to play the clarinet, piano and saxophone at a school for the blind. Now he is seen as one of the fathers of soul music.
Actors and actresses
Ray Charles
Della Bea Robinson
Margie Hendricks
Joe Adams
Jeff Brown
Fathead Newman
Aretha Robinson
Young Ray Robinson
Ahmet Ertegun
Jerry Wexler
Reviews & comments
Sergio Leone
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- 4431 messages
- 3111 votes
Quite good.
Director Tyler Hackford is making a biopic by the book. One follows the rise of musical talent Ray Charles (around 1950) and one ends when he tries to kick heroin, somewhere in the late 1960s. Everything in between is a kind of compilation of (the creation of) his greatest hits, alternated with sometimes clumsily directed flashbacks about his youth, in order to be able to explain his later idiotic behaviour.
However, the figure Ray Charles was unknown to me enough to keep me interested throughout the entire playing time. In addition, the 1950ies are beautifully portrayed and the film feels very atmospheric. Although not exactly my genre, Charles's repertoire is quite impressive.
Jamie Foxx also gives the film just that little bit extra. He gratefully uses the typical Ray Charles tics to become him. I'm not surprised he won an Oscar for this. The rest of the cast is interchangeable, but that shouldn't come as a surprise. Ray Charles is the star, in that the film is very clear.
3.5
Translated from Dutch · View original
Filmkriebel
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- 10013 messages
- 4679 votes
Very solid, but I give it "only" 3.5 because the music genre appeals to me a bit less, and I've seen films in the "musician biographies" category that outperform Ray and I'm mainly talking about Walk the Line (4* ), Cloclo (4*) and Rocketman (4.5*). Bit of bad luck for Ray so that I saw these films before, but that doesn't mean that the film is going down in my eyes. Far from. Jamie Foxx beautifully portrays the artist as a man with his own sins such as women and heroin. He also struggled with a deep sense of guilt from his childhood. He also dared to boycott the Georgia segregation laws, an episode I had never heard of. His blindness was a weakness to him, which he turned into strength from an early age. A fascinating figure who also immediately added immortal hits to the cultural heritage such as "Hit the Road Jack" and "What'd I Say" whose origins also get an appropriate place in the film.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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