Plot
The life and career of the legendary popular music pianist, Ray Charles.
Release Year: 2004
Rating: 7.7/10 (56,309 voted)
Critic's Score: 73/100
Director:
Taylor Hackford
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Regina King, Kerry Washington
Storyline Ray Charles has the distinction of being both a national treasure and an international phenomenon. By the early 1960's Ray Charles had accomplished his dream. He'd come of age musically. He'd made it to Carnegie Hall. The hit records "Georgia," "Born to Lose" successively kept climbing to the top of the charts. He'd made his first triumphant European concert tour in 1960 (a feat which, except for 1965, he's repeated at least once a year ever since). He had taken virtually every form of popular music and broken through its boundaries with such awe inspiring achievements as the LP's "Genius Plus Soul Equals Jazz" and "Modern Sounds in Country & Western." Rhythm & blues (or "race music" as it had been called) became universally respectable through his efforts. Jazz found a mainstream audience it had never previously enjoyed...
Writers: Taylor Hackford, James L. White
Cast: Jamie Foxx
-
Ray Charles
Kerry Washington
-
Della Bea Robinson
Regina King
-
Margie Hendricks
Clifton Powell
-
Jeff Brown
Harry Lennix
-
Joe Adams
Bokeem Woodbine
-
Fathead Newman
Aunjanue Ellis
-
Mary Ann Fisher
Sharon Warren
-
Aretha Robinson
C.J. Sanders
-
Young Ray Robinson
Curtis Armstrong
-
Ahmet Ertegun
Richard Schiff
-
Jerry Wexler
Larenz Tate
-
Quincy Jones
Terrence Howard
-
Gossie McGee
(as Terrence Dashon Howard)
David Krumholtz
-
Milt Shaw
Wendell Pierce
-
Wilbur Brassfield
Taglines:
The extraordinary life story of Ray Charles. A man who fought harder and went farther than anyone thought possible.
Opening Weekend: $20,039,730
(USA)
(31 October 2004)
(2006 Screens)
Gross: $75,305,995
(USA)
(13 March 2005)
Technical Specs
Runtime:|
USA:
(extended version)
Did You Know?
Trivia: Taylor Hackford says on his commentary that he made the decision to end the film in the middle of Ray's life because his later life consisted of no conflict, only success.
Goofs:
Anachronisms:
In a scene set in the late 1950s, Ray's baby boy is sitting on a Precious Moments blanket. Precious Moments were not introduced until the early 1970s.
Quotes:
[first lines]
Aretha Robinson:
Always remember your promise to me. Never let nobody or nothing turn you into no cripple.
User Review
Not a Ray fan? No problem. Cinema at its best
Rating: 10/10
My wife wanted to see this movie and I grudgingly went along. I have
never been a big fan of the biopic - believing that cinema is more
exciting when it isn't structured in non-fiction. Beyond that, although
I like Ray Charles' music just fine, I don't consider myself a fan of
him or his music.
I expected to either suffer or coast through this movie.
I was wrong.
This is an engaging story told in a classic cinematic style. The
realism is in the nuances - the tilt of a character's head after a
dramatic moment or the look in their eyes while they sing. I literally
discovered myself involved in this movie during the course of viewing
it.
Jaime Foxx, of which much has been said, heads a cast of immaculate
re-creators of not just a time, but an ERA, a LIFE that never really
existed to those of us under forty. This movie sinks the audience into
time without the gimmicks and grand sweeping panoramas of Titanic or
other period pieces of that ilk. This movie doesn't present you with
the 50's and 60's music scene, it takes you there.
This is a movie about Ray Charles, but your appreciate of it should not
be limited to the story of his life. This is the kind of movie, like
Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List, that does what a movie should
do - bring you to another place, another time.
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