Ray (2004)

I'd heard of Ray Charles long before the 2004 biographical film Ray hit the silver screen in 2004, but I didn't know much about him. I couldn't name a single song that he had either penned or performed and I couldn't really tell you anything about his life. The only thing that I did know was that he had not let blindness get in the way of achieving his dreams. So when I sat down to watch Ray the other night, I was expecting it to be a wonderful experience. All the material would be new to me and I would learn something.

Jamie Foxx stars as Ray Robinson, a young blind man who travels all the way across the country from Florida to Seattle, Washington in order to perform gigs as a jazz and blues pianist. At first, people are wary of Ray because they don't think a blind man would be any good. But Ray is not only good, he is fantastic. In fact, he's one of the best musicians any of these people have ever seen, and word of his talents quickly spreads through the music industry.

Ray hooks up with a record producer who says the first thing they've got to do is change his name. After all, "Sugar" Ray Robinson, the boxer, had already made that name famous and there was no point in confusing people by giving them another Ray Robinson. So the producer suggested that Ray use his middle name instead, and thus Ray Charles was born.

The rest of the film basically gives the highlights (and some low points) of Ray Charles' illustrious musical career. He goes on to get signed by Atlantic Records and becomes a superstar after that. He gets married to a woman named Della Bea (played by Kerry Washington) who stays with him for a couple of decades despite his well-known womanizing and drug use. He picks up a heroin habit early on that nearly destroys his career and does eventually destroy his marriage. And he travels around the country (and around the world) performing for tens of thousands of adoring fans.

The thing that stood out most in Ray was Jamie Foxx's performance. Obviously, I knew to watch out for him because he won the Best Actor Oscar for his role, but I didn't know how powerful his acting really was. I had seen Foxx a few times before on the television show In Living Color, and had always thought of him as a comedian first and foremost. But in this movie, he gets to show off the full range of his acting talents, and he is absolutely superb as Ray Charles.

Another performance that I really enjoyed was the one turned in by Regina King. She played Margie Hendricks, one of Ray's backup singers who carries on an extended affair with him. I think King is a wonderful actress (she's been in Boyz n the Hood and Jerry Maguire among many, many other films) and never disappoints. She did an excellent job as "the other woman" in Ray, knowing that she could never be Mrs. Ray Charles and yet not quite being able to come to terms with that fact.

Unfortunately, those are about the only two things I enjoyed about this movie. I thought the film was overly long and contained far too many concert scenes. I know this was a biography of a musician, so you can't really get around the concert scenes. But people who watch biographical pictures do so in order to see what went on behind the scenes. That was the case for me with Ray. I didn't want to see so much of Ray Charles' public persona. I wanted to see what he did when the flashbulbs weren't popping and when the fans weren't screaming. If writer/director Taylor Hackford had cut out 25-30 minutes of the entire running time (nearly two hours and thirty minutes for the theatrical release) I think this could have been a much better overall experience.

I recommend the movie Ray just for the acting performances of Jamie Foxx and Regina King. Otherwise, the boring, repetitive concert scenes and the lack of real tension or drama are more likely to put you to sleep than entertain you.