Get On Up

Tate Taylor's unconventional James Brown biopic chronicles the chaotic life of the Godfather of Soul in fractured chronological order. Get On Up begins with a 1998 incident that led to Brown's arrest following a high-speed police chase and then cuts to sequences from his childhood in a shack in the backwoods of South Carolina. Abused by his father (Lennie James) and deserted by his mother (Viola Davis), Brown was left in the care of a paternal aunt (Octavia Spencer). During these jumbled flashbacks, Brown breaks the so-called fourth wall, addressing the audience to express his innermost feelings. Growing into a life of petty crime, Brown (Chadwick Boseman) is arrested in Georgia for stealing a man's suit from a car. Singing at a gospel concert for penitentiary inmates, Brown's talent impresses Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), frontman for the Famous Flames, and Brown eventually meets promoter Ben Bart (Dan Akyroyd), setting him on the path to create music history. Get On Up's biggest strength is Boseman's performance as he energetically re-creates Brown's strut, swagger, and rubber-legged shimmy, including those spectacular splits. But Taylor does have difficulties making the contradictions in Brown's personal life palatable (including roughing up his wives). Known as the hardest working man in show business, Brown was totally self-made, influencing a generation of hip-hop R&B singer-dancers (including Michael Jackson, Prince, Usher, and Chris Brown), but his ego was colossal, his temper tantrums legendary, and he suffered from drug-addled paranoia. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director-producer Tate Taylor, the behind-the-scenes featurettes “Chadwick Boseman: Meet Mr. James Brown” with the star (12 min.), “The Get On Up Family” (7 min.), “Tate Taylor's Master Class” (7 min.), and “Long Journey to the Screen” (4 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are deleted, extended, and alternate scenes (15 min.), “The Founding Father of Funk” (13 min.) segment on James Brown featuring producer Mick Jagger and others, four full song performances (10 min.), three extended song performances (8 min.), an “On Stage with the Hardest Working Man” archival comparison (7 min.), and bonus DVD, digital, and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a solid music bio-pic.] (S. Granger)