As much as I enjoy the work of the late Chadwick Boseman, I was a little hesitant to watch Get on Up, a biopic of the late James Brown. Sure, I had heard Boseman was fantastic in the role, hardly surprising as he’s been fantastic in all of his roles, but musician biopics tend to be a bit on the formulaic side, often opening with a scene before a performance before flashing back and retelling the subject’s life before going forward, showing how the subject made various mistakes along the way, usually with a divorce tossed in, and then finally getting his or her act together for a big show-stopping final performance, ending with some onscreen text telling the audience how the individual went from there, including how he or she died if the subject is dead.
Regardless of much Get on Up fits that bill, many of these movies can still be worth a look based entirely on the strength of the lead performance, and Boseman was a great lead actor, so why not take a look? Worst case scenario: I learn something about the life of James Brown.
As it is, I was relieved to see this didn’t fit the musical biopic for one really good reason: the movie plays out as a nonlinear stream-of-consciousness. After an opening scene where an older Brown goes into a small seminar being hosted next to a business he owned. Someone there had used Brown’s private restroom, and being high and armed with a shotgun, he goes inside and scares the hell out of everyone. He doesn’t seem to want to shoot anybody. Indeed, he doesn’t even seem to understand why everyone is freaked out. From there, the movie flashes back and forth through Brown’s life, showing how he got there, starting with a rough childhood where his mother (the great Viola Davis) abandoned him as a child to the tender mercies of his abusive father (Lennie James), around to various points where he went to prison, met up with musician Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis, another actor who tragically died young), and then ending with a triumphant performance where Brown sings a tribute to everyone from his life, particularly his longtime (and occasionally estranged) friend Byrd.
So, what does this movie have to say about James Brown? Arguably, Brown had a massive ego throughout his entire life, so it’s not as if fame went to his head and he left the people he worked his way up with behind like many other subjects of movies like this. The nature of the movie also allows Brown to see and hear things from his childhood, like the music he performed so well, playing well before he had a chance to perform it while engaged in a battle royale as a boy. It’s that sort of movie. Brown, as a character, doesn’t really develop so much as he emerged fully formed into the man he was long before he sings a single note. He’s ambitious, at least outwardly full of himself, and willing to do what it takes to make as much money as he can. He’s not dumb. If anything, the movie portrays him as being as much a smart businessman as anything else. But then, there’ll be a moment when, alone, a more, for lack of a better word, human version of Brown comes out and he’s not just some sort of caricature of a successful musician that didn’t care who he stepped on along the way. There’s no moment here when Brown just becomes a better person necessarily. He just sort of realizes he already is the man he wants to be, but he can show gratitude to people like Byrd without actually spelling out exactly what he’s doing.
However, a movie like this wouldn’t work without a strong central performance, and Boseman accomplishes that in a way that makes it look easy. It would be far too easy to portray Brown as an obnoxious clown, more villain than anything else, but Boseman manages to inject him with the right amount of charisma, such that no matter what selfish things Brown does when he isn’t innovating, he is still the most compelling figure on screen. That’s a testament to Boseman more than anything else. It took the right kind of actor to make this movie as compelling as it is, and he was clearly the right man for the job.
Grade: A
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