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Ray The Jamie Foxx Oscar Buzz is deafening. We've watched him grow as an actor, start to tackle major dramatic roles in big time Hollywood movies, and seen him do his interpretation of Ray Charles on daytime TV, so Ray seems to be destined for some Oscar consideration and possible box office gold. Make no mistake about it. Ray is Jamie Foxx's tour de force, and a fine film, but the rest of the movie can't always keep up with him. Foxx stars as Ray Charles as he sets out from his small Florida hometown to make a career in music, but still looks back to those important moments with his family that shaped him. As his career takes off to stratospheric levels, we get to see the stories behind the public persona, his dark side, the battle with drugs, his infidelity and moments that could destroy his promising career. Amazing isn't a strong enough or descriptive enough word to convey the magnificence and mastery of Foxx's performance, and he even lip-sychs better than Ashlee Simpson. Decades from now, when Foxx retires from the acting game, everyone will look back on this movie as one of his greatest moments. You'll be blown away by his ability to mimic Charles, but it's more than that. Foxx shows us Charles' love of life, the spring in his step, and the undeniable charisma, but he also digs deeper for the dark side. Some of Foxx's best moments are when he drops the public Ray Charles persona to show the anger, the manipulation, and the addiction to drugs and women. He has a great ability to make us laugh, make us cry and make us angry at all the right moments. While Foxx is giving the performance of a lifetime, the rest of the movie is very very good, but not amazing. The acting performances best exemplify the movie's close call with greatness. No one can match Foxx, but Kerry Washington does a fine job trying to keep up. As Charles long suffering wife, Bea, Washington needs to go toe to toe with Foxx at his best, and shows some strong acting chops when giving her speech to Ray about his drug addiction, while Foxx shoots back with Ray's justification for it (another amazing moment for Foxx). Sadly, she hasn't been getting the Oscar Buzz Regina King has gotten for her portrayal of Margie Hendricks, one of the first Raylettes and one of Ray's mistresses. King is good, but never reaches the same level as Washington. The writing and directing also have good and bad moments as well. Writer James L. White and director Taylor Hackford give us loads of info about Charles, but it feels like too much at times. Many important facts and stories can't be fully explained (even at two and half hours long!), and feel thrown in to wow us or make us think the two didn't forget about moments important to longtime fans and music history experts. For example, the crowd gets a good laugh when Charles meets up with Quincy Jones (Larenz Tate) because we understand the historic significance of this moment and these two men, but Hackford and White don't do much else with it. Another important part of the story is how Charles ends up betraying many people in his life, but we don't need all of them to get the point. We get to learn everything we need to know about Charles and troubles with how he managed his personal life by watching the drama between him and Bea, but Hackford and White only momentarily deal with rifts between him and his manager, Jeff Brown (Clifton Powell). It's important, but with little time dedicated to it, the relationship's importance is lost and minimalized. Finally, Ray ends too abruptly. Meanwhile, Hackford and White do a wonderful job using flashbacks to show us how Charles' mother (Sharon Warren, who is a bit too melodramatic throughout most of the movie), taught him to survive as a blind man and adopt a strong confidence and inner strength to cope in a tough world. Also, they smartly start the movie focused on Foxx as Charles in 1948 instead of taking us through those early childhood days at the beginning. We are roped in immediately by the movie's greatest asset, Foxx, and shown Ray is going to be funny and uplifting as well as dark and dramatic. Ray is one of the very good movies you can see this year, but it's Foxx's performance that deserves all of the attention and celebration. Thankfully, he hasn't let it all go to his head and changed his name to JAMES Foxx. 3 ½ Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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