The 2014 film, Get on Up, takes an autobiographical look at the Godfather of Soul; James Brown starring Chadwick Boseman and directed by Tate Taylor.
Over the course of several years, I have seen documentaries on James Brown and several of his recorded concerts. As a result, I think Chadwick nails Brown’s voice and his dance moves. Plus, he did some singing in the film too.
However, Boseman gets let down by the time sequences of film and editing which are uneven. It introduces us to James Brown toward the end of his career, then to his childhood, future concerts, how he started, back to childhood or any of the previously mentioned without something to connect them so it makes sense to the viewer.
One specific is one of the first scenes in the film where Brown visits one of the business he owns. He gets upset at a woman who used the bathroom in the building, and it appears to finish quickly until much later in the film when I found out the incident leads to him being chased by the police.
A second instance occurs a while later at after concert party when Birdy comes into the room to tell Brown a woman who introduced herself as his mother wants to see him. We do not get to see Brown with his mother and hear what is said between them until near the end of the film.
If the sequences in the script, and editing had been better the film could have risen to the level of Chadwick’s amazing performance.
