Ray
Dir: Taylor Hackford
2004
****
I've always been a big fan of Ray Charles but apart from his music and and few interviews he did in the late eighties, I really didn't know that much about him. He was a bit of a rascal eh it seems. I have to be honest, I though this was going to be another cliched biopic but I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be pretty original. At first it seemed like it was going at around a month a second but Taylor Hackford wisely and masterfully uses flash-backs to his advantage. It has become somewhat of a template for biopics since but I guess like the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Jamie Foxx isn't an actor that I'm that enamored by at the best of times but I was impressed with his performance here.