Get On Up (2014) * *

Directed by:  Tate Taylor

Starring:  Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Jill Scott, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Dan Aykroyd

James Brown surely had to be more charismatic and likable than the guy presented in Get On Up, which presents Brown mostly as an egomaniacal, belligerent a-hole.    The premise is we should forgive Brown his trespasses because, boy, could he sing and dance.    There is no denying Brown's influence on music.   The epilogue of Get On Up tells us he is among the most "sampled artists of all time."   He was unique and there won't be another one like him.     If the movie is to be believed, then thank goodness.     But, there had to be more sides to the man than Get On Up represents.

The film opens in the early 90s with a very high James Brown pulling a gun on a group of real estate class trainees.    Brown owns the building and was very upset that one of the trainees used the bathrooms.     This awkward scene sets the tone for the rest of the film, which shows Brown as an arrogant bully who makes life rough for anyone who loves him.    In real life, Brown was jailed for the gun incident and for leading cops on a high speed chase while high on PCP. 

We follow Brown through his poor childhood in Georgia, where he was bounced around between his mother, father, and an aunt who ran a brothel.    He is jailed for stealing in this teens, but discovers a talent for singing and dancing that he uses when he is released to form a band.    Brown, however, isn't a lead singer for long.    He is signed to a record deal as a solo act, retaining only the loyalty of his friend Bobby (Ellis), who becomes Brown's right hand man, backup singer,  and occasional doormat.    When Bobby expresses a desire to become a solo act himself, Brown behaves like a scorned creep thus ending their friendship for a number of years.

Maybe the real James Brown was this way all the time and thus we are presented with a one-dimensional look at the "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business."    The performances are spot on.   Boseman supplies energy and his moves are certainly Brown-esque, so we can't blame him for acting as the material suggests he should.    Director Taylor made 2011's The Help, which was a look at racially-torn Mississippi during the early days of civil rights.    Get On Up is a biopic which doesn't cover much new ground.     We have seen Brown's story in countless other musical biopics.    I have sometimes criticized some biopics for not showing why the subject was so lauded in the first place.    Get On Up shows so many musical numbers that the film seems like it is just killing time.  

I use Behind the Candleabra, Steven Soderbergh's biopic of Liberace, as a counterpoint to this film.    It wasn't afraid to show Liberace as touching, tender, vicious, spiteful, and human.    He is presented three dimensionally.    Get On Up focuses on the vicious, spiteful stuff.    There is not one scene involving Brown's wife in which he is seen as anything but an abusive creep.    His son dies from a drug overdose, causing Brown to get high and lead the cops on the chase, but to my knowledge he has no scenes involving him interacting with this children.    They are around, like the wife, but hardly given anything to do.

We say some biopics show its subject "warts and all."    Get On Up is only interested in the warts part.    There is a good film to be made about "Mr. Please, Please, Please," but this isn't it.