Ray

2006-10-02

Ray is a biopic-by-the-numbers. Depicting the life of Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx does a competent job of portraying someone blind (it’s of course hard to tell how close he is to Charles). The film lurches from one scene to the next, and portrays Charles as a fun-loving but flawed man (cynics might point out that this is what most biographical films of entertainers do). There’s nothing that particularly stands out, but no part of the film that’s truly awful either. Worth watching if you’re interested in Ray Charles’s life, but otherwise nothing special.

Comments

Fair enough. I think it's the job of a biopic to get you interested in the character, and I like you, I didn't know a lot about Ray Charles before I started watching the film, and ended up with a better understanding of him. So in that respect it was good. I don't think it was as impressive as some more intense films such as Nixon, but maybe that's just my preference. Anyway, I would agree that Jamie Foxx's performance was strong.

— Andrew Ferrier 2006-10-08 18:24

Think I'd have to disagree with you a bit on this. I wasn't particularly interested in Ray Charles before seeing this but thoroughly enjoyed this film. Jamie Foxx's portrayal or Ray Charles is superb and well deserving of the Oscar he won (he insisted on doing almost everything with his eyes closed in order to ensure he came across as being blind). Unfortunately Jamie (like a number of good actors) seems to have taken several less challenging roles in subsequent films - stick with the good stuff Jamie.

— Chris Tomkins 2006-10-08 17:39