Get on Up

(2014) ★★½

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James Brown died on Christmas Day in 2006. The funk singer known as the Godfather of Soul. The self-styled Hardest Working Man in Show Business. Raised in poverty in the South Carolina bayou. Brought down by drug-fuelled paranoia and tax evasion.

It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World, he sang in the 60s, and proved it by becoming an habitual hitter of women. Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud, he sang in the 60s. Then endorsed Richard Nixon for president and cosied up to anti-civil rights senator Strom Thurmond: “He’s like a grandfather to me.” A man of contradictions, aka Mr Dynamite. Ka-boom.

Fresh from playing a genuinely iconic figure in African-American history, baseball legend Jackie Robinson in 42, Chadwick Boseman lip-synchs to James Brown’s greatest hits in a scattershot biopic that’s interested in all the gossip but couldn’t care less about any of the politics.

Boseman’s commitment to the task at hand is admirable, even though his physical resemblance to the considerably shorter Brown is non-existent. Directed by Taylor Tate, who made The Help. One of the producers is Mick Jagger, who could also sing a bit.

Certificate: 12

Duration: 139min

IMDB – Get on Up

TMDB – Get on Up

Rotten Tomatoes – Get on Up