Ray

8 Clowns
Review by Clown Joe

When a movie starts with two, TWO!, flashbacks within the first ten minutes you know you’re in trouble, but you just don’t know how much. You just may get lost and sleep for the next two hours, you may think you’re in the middle of some Quetine Tarrenteeno (named spelled incorrectly on purpose) and declare it Clown, or something or someone energizes the film for some saving grace. This film falls in the latter, but as hard as Jamie Foxx tries, he just can’t save this film.

 We start with Ray Charles Robinson on a bus to Seattle. After being bombarded with the early flashbacks, Ray lands in Seattle and literally within seconds meets an at-the-time unknown Quincy Jones! Within seconds! Then he gets an audition with a band again within seconds! Then he gets a gig, daddio, within seconds! And he has a woman and the band leader haggling over percentages of the profits within seconds! And a British midget introduces Country Dumb to pot within seconds!

 Ray then moves from handler to label until he ultimately falls into the lap of Atlantic Records, who essentially let him be who he got to be. This is where the movie gets going, yet still is bogged down by cliché after cliché. Drugs, women, white guys nodding their heads about how great their music sensation is, and of course, life on “the road”. Charles’ rehab scenes are near-Clown (imagine for a second if it were an alien-as-human in rehab). Oh Kevin Spacey, where are you?

 The film is really too tiresome for its own good, despite Foxx’s performance, which I’ll grant you is pretty good. He looks like Ray Charles, but I wouldn’t know if he acted like him, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ray Charles do anything but sing and sway around like a junkie. Foxx is being touted for a Best Actor nomination and many are calling for a win. But I liken his performance of, say, Andre Dawson, for the last place Cubs. Can someone from a last place team really be the MVP? So then, can someone win a Best Actor award when the film they star is sucks monkey balls? 

The end of the movie isn’t even remotely climactic as they stick in a picture of ole’ Ray Charles himself. And here, I believe, is the problem with this movie. It’s all about Ray. Now that may sound odd, but it’s true. The other characters were there only to serve Ray – in the movie and in real life. It’s been said that brilliance borders on psychosis and since Ray Charles was a brilliant music-maker (and had more than a hand in making this film) I’ll say this: Ray Charles was depicted as a controlling narcissist jerk-off and the film follows suit, making it a self-serving piece of crap.

 RAY – 8 CLOWNS