Most biopics aren’t gonna start with somebody taking a dump. My memory may be faulty, but I don’t quite remember The Passion of Joan of Arc or Malcolm X or Gandhi starting with a commode scene. In the late 80s, James Brown (Chadwick Boseman) owned a series of combination laundromat/self-affirmation centers –or that’s what it looked like. You’d think he’d open a line of massage parlors entitled something like “James Brown’s Good Feel.” It seems natural, doesn’t it? But I digress– at one such laundry center, a patron used Mr. Brown’s private bathroom and, to put it mildly, James didn’t feel good about it. When he brandished a rifle, the retribution became a case for the local authorities.
I gotta believe this part of James Brown’s life was true to the facts, because, well, why would anybody make that up? Luckily, Get on Up didn’t dwell on this bit of ugliness; the picture acted as if it wanted to get it out of the way — “ok, we showed you James Brown getting arrested over a toilet, now we can get on with our story …”
Get on Up sees James Brown as a fighter and a shrewd opportunist; somebody who realized that art was business first – passion without audience is no better than singing to your mirror. Early on, we see him use an intermission by Little Richard (Brandon Smith) at a roadhouse to perform live. Why not? People came for music, right? Here’s more. Get on Up already showed us a chronologically advanced scene of James having to take a back seat to a then unknown English band named The Rolling Stones. James Brown’s reaction is to give a performance demonstrating that he and not the Stones deserved to close the show. (Mick Jagger produced Get on Up, btw; it’s a fair bet he remembers this moment well.)
This film amuses itself greatly with jumps in time, often showing us Brown at various stages of his life contrasting with the current situation. With James performing to a sold out crowd, for instance, the film instantly cut to the very humble shack where the child version of the Godfather of Soul was abandoned in the backwoods of life. We don’t see a real passion for music until James goes to prison for suit theft. All you kids out there take note: don’t steal suits! It’s a gateway crime – first wingtips, then you’re stealing a 
belt, forty years later you bring a rifle to a PTA meeting over a toilet abuse.
Two things stand out about the Chadwick Boseman portrayal of James Brown, and neither is about showmanship (although Boseman does make a pretty good Brown): perfectionism and opportunism. The former is obvious; Brown labored for his craft, often tiring band members out. The latter, I imagine, is a more subtle reflection of what kind of man he became. It wasn’t that James Brown tirelessly fought THE MAN for his share with the same flamboyance he used on stage; it was more about shrewdness — like an anaconda slowly squeezing the breath from a victim, James Brown took up slack wherever he saw it – an empty stage, a contract loophole, a partner-challenged woman – James collected wherever he saw an opportunity to collect.
I would have liked Get on Up better had it not been pre-parodied in Dewey Cox, but I still found this a ton more entertaining than Walk the Line. As Boseman has already played post WWII icons Jackie Robinson and James Brown, one wonders who is next? Huey Newton? Martin Luther King, Jr.? Bob Hope? That one I’d like to see.
♪OW!
I feel conflicted
Didn’t know that I would now
And contradicted
Life’s rarely one big cash cow
So SO!
Don’t know
What is true? ♫
Rated PG-13, 138 Minutes
Director: Tate Taylor
Writer: Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth
Genre: Feel good. Ow!
Person most likely to enjoy this film: Distant cousins, grandnieces and grandnephews of soul.
Person least likely to enjoy the film: THE MAN
♪Parody inspired by “I Feel Good”
