Movie Review: Get On Up

As you watch the James Brown biopic Get On Up, you get the sense that James Brown would enjoy the film if he was still alive. That’s because Tate Taylor’s nonlinear narrative is pulsing with the same vitality and effervescent energy that Brown poured into his craft. In this way, the movie is humorously eccentric like Brown, although the artist would probably appreciate that the story embraces his idiosyncrasies without ever becoming judgemental.

Get On Up darts back and forth through James Brown’s life, tackling his rough rural upbringing, his early days as a musician in the ‘50s, his heyday in the ‘60s and ‘70s, his fall from grace during the ‘80s, and finally his revival in the ‘90s. To keep track of it all, Taylor marks each period on screen with a year and a description almost like a record liner note. This approach makes the film easy to follow despite its manic mid-scene shifts between different time periods. It also helps the picture keep moving at just the right pace.

Another engaging thing Get On Up does is to paint a complex and captivating portrait of Brown as a person. Because the film shows difficult events from his life in their emotional context, you never feel like it’s passing judgement. Even when you see Brown committing domestic violence or running from the cops, he remains sympathetic thanks to Chadwick Boseman’s tremendously nuanced performance. When Brown has a moral slip like this, Boseman brings an emotional gravity to the situation that makes Brown’s intense disappointment with himself palpable.

Boseman shows you that Brown’s ego was the size of an eighteen wheeler, but he also exposes you to how conscious Brown was of his craft as a showman. You come to appreciate Brown even more as an artist because of how hard he practiced and how he always pushed himself to break new barriers musically. When you see Boseman dancing like a madman, he makes it extremely easy to see how Brown earned the title “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.”

Although he was solid as Jackie Robinson in 42, Boseman’s performance in Get On Up is more impressive because he rises above no frills acting and elevates his efforts to a higher level. He achieves the swagger necessary to break the fourth wall while addressing you, which is no small feat. But Boseman also nails James Brown’s dance moves with great precision. When you watch him as Brown on stage, you get the sense that he’s sweating just as much as Brown did during those very gigs.

Speaking of the gigs, almost all of Brown’s songs are shown in the context of these performances, which get the non-linear treatment as well. Taylor jumps through time mid-concert, however these scenes still don’t feel are energetically directed. Since they’re long, they cause the film to drag. The movie could be at least 15 minutes tighter if these scenes were trimmed.

A bigger issue with Get On Up though is that it takes it’s own eccentricity too far, especially in regard to dreamy sequences that transform adult James Brown into a child. Not only are these moments out there in a bad way (think the worst parts of Oliver Stone’s The Doors), but they’re heavy handed as well. Had Tate shown restraint in this department and made judicious edits, his film would be much sharper. Despite these shortcomings, Get On Up is still a manic musical biopic with engrossing energy and a stellar lead performance at its forefront that’s definitely worth watching.

✭✭✭ ½