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Cadillac Records (2008)

Director: Darnell Martin

Time Out rating

Average user rating

5 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

With a roster of artists including blues legend Muddy Waters, duck-walking icon Chuck Berry, and gutbucket soul diva Etta James, Chicago’s Chess Records deserves its place in history. It’s worth a documentary series, but here’s a sincere, somewhat ungainly drama which summarises the cultural significance of white entrepreneur Leonard Chess’s operation and samples the musicians’ triumphs and tribulations by laying everything end to end. In story terms, its cavalcade of melodrama and conflict isn’t always persuasive, but writer-director Darnell Martin’s respect for the music shines through, and the parts – some fine performances, an alert eye for ’50s social tensions – are often more striking than the whole.

While it’s more interested in the legend than the facts, the movie nails the bind facing black performers, who needed the likes of Chess (Adrien Brody) to release records, yet fell foul of sharp accounting in the process. Jeffrey Wright’s imposing Muddy Waters is delighted, like his stablemates, to be rewarded with a Cadillac, but his boss keeps schtum that his royalties paid for it. Since Chess had a genius for talent-spotting, the movie cuts him a little slack, though it dwells too much on his more than professional interest in the troubled, voluptuous James (Beyoncé Knowles, nuanced and credible). Her searing vocalising takes pride of place on the lovingly recreated soundtrack, which misses the raw electricity of the Chess recordings but, like the film, is good enough to drive you to the peerless originals.

Author: Trevor Johnston

Time Out London Issue 2009, 19-25 Feb, 2009

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User reviews of this film

Dean said...

Posted on Apr 19 2009 02:02 I don't think Beyonce deserves any awards for her acting. She might get one or two for her great singing, which is great in the movie and was great in Dreamgirls, but as an actor she is so short of talent. She is ok but nothing more, utterly unconvincing with the esception of her voice tha tells a number of stories. Wright is a good actor and quite convincing, Brody lacks something but s ok. The film is just like any other drama with and around music, sadly so.

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ncat said...

Posted on Dec 08 2008 16:41 The movie was ok but was missing meat. I was confused at the end thinking that it could have been better. I was shocked Beyonce's performance. She shed her good girl model for a cussing salior. I belive she may win an award for this performance because it was out of her character.

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Todd Turbin said...

Posted on Dec 05 2008 20:46 I wish whoever is signing new or talented singers would request a press kit from Faith Gatewood she does a very talented job with At Last by
etta jamers

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mcjazzycat said...

Posted on Dec 04 2008 05:27 Jeffrey Wright was Amazing!! And Adrien Brody !?!

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mcjazzycat said...

Posted on Dec 04 2008 05:22 Let me be the first of many rave reviews of this movie. Absolutely AWESOME production! A Number One MUST SEE.

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