Get On Up

‘Get On Up' is an entertaining romp through the bleak, funny and fundamentally funky life of James Brown. It is a biopic depicting the rise, fall and rise again of the Godfather of Soul, played by Chadwick Boseman.

The viewer is chronologically catapulted through Brown’s life, from backwater broken-home, to the bright lights of the Apollo Music Theatre. Music is shown as a cathartic release for the performer, his singing, composition skills and almost-ecclesiastic theatricality being his only antidote to a lonely existence.

Much of the film focuses on Brown’s wariness of his musical act becoming a commodity for white commercial interests. His determination to take his fate into his own hands and conquer, not just the ‘show’ but ‘show business’ itself, allows director, Tate Taylor, to lay down the paving slabs of an inspirational rags-to-riches narrative.

Whether it be Brown coming under fire from anti-aircraft guns whilst flying over Vietnam, smoking 'angel dust', or attempting to outrun the police in a high-octane car chase, ‘Get On Up’ effectively shows how the flamboyancy did not stop with his music. The spark of his personality could even have incited or quelled a riot in the racial tinderbox that was 1960s America.

While ‘Get On Up’, does omit some of Brown’s legendary exploits (his unorthodox 1988 CNN interview should be mandatory viewing on YouTube!), it more than compensates with a soundtrack destined to induce a collective head bobbing in a cinema near you.