Cadillac Records tells the story of the beginning of Rock & Roll

Fans of musical dramas may experience some deja vu while watching "Cadillac Records"; the story is remarkably similar to one told in the middle of 2006's "Dreamgirls," in a montage set to "Steppin' to the Bad Side." There's the plucky upstart studio where African-American musicians are pioneering new kinds of music. There's the driven record-label owner who's dispensing payola to deejays, trying to buy his way past institutionalized racism and cross over from the R&B ghetto to the white-dominated pop charts. There's the white group that steals a black musician's song and turns it into a hit single. There are lots of flashy new cars as symbols of success.

And above all, there's the music, the motivator and the moneymaker, the one thing that heals all wounds—or at least in the case of the blues, expresses them.

In "Dreamgirls," the sequence is a flashy, fictionalized amalgam of events from the Motown era. In "Cadillac Records," it's straight-up history. The film may also induce deja vu in longtime Chicago residents, because there's a chance they lived through these stories, when South Side brothers Leonard and Phil Chess relaunched Aristocrat as Chess Records and started releasing albums by the likes of Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and many more. "Cadillac Records" shrugs off Phil Chess and the label's early years in order to focus on Leonard, on some of the label's biggest personalities and on the music they made.

The story starts in Chicago in the 1940s, with Chess ( Adrien Brody) as a young Polish immigrant promising his girlfriend's father that he'll transcend his poor origins: "Don't worry where I'm from, my wife's gonna drive a Cadillac." That's the closest the film comes to explaining Chess' obsession with the cars, which he later dispenses to his successful recording artists like badges of honor. When Chess takes up with Muddy Waters (played with growling charisma by Jeffrey Wright, also recently seen as Colin Powell in "W." and James Bond's CIA buddy in "Quantum of Solace"), his label takes off, and he rapidly brings in talents such as Little Walter (Columbus Short), Berry ( Mos Def), Howlin' Wolf (Eamonn Walker), and Etta James (executive producer Beyonce Knowles). But as the business comes together, his stars fall apart, sunk in various vices and deep-seated emotional issues. It's almost as though singing the blues isn't a cheery calling.

Those vices provide a bunch of riveting stories, including Berry's arrest under the Mann Act and Little Walter's public alcoholic meltdown. But they're presented as a series of disjointed anecdotes, bookended by overripe narration from Cedric The Entertainer as Willie Dixon. Writer-director Darnell Martin leaves a lot of key issues dangling, particularly about Chess' motives, and whether, as Waters repeatedly claims, he's cheating his artists. Oscar-winner Brody ("The Pianist") plays Chess as a guarded man who makes for a frail lead. He's a shadowy background figure uncomfortably placed at center stage.

Fortunately, that stage is crowded with broader, more intense characters who keep the energy level high. In particular, Mos Def makes a terrific Berry, all flash and confidence, and Wright offers a memorably soulful take on Waters, whether he's strutting, singing, suffering or all three. Walker's Howlin' Wolf is a deep-throated, pride-filled bear of a man who dominates the screen.

Between them, they offer portraits that sometimes veer toward caricature, but that fill out the film almost as well as its rich soundtrack.

"Cadillac Records" could use more music and less mugging—Knowles' take on James in particular is only convincing when she's singing, which is fitting from a woman whose acting skills come in a distant second to her voice. But after every misstep, the film finds its feet again during the exhilarating, sweaty Chess studio sessions, where the film's cast covers songs from rock 'n' roll to electric blues to soul, from Waters' "I Can't Be Satisfied" to James' "At Last." Just as in real life, no matter what else is going on in these musicians' lives, the music temporarily makes everything much better.

MPAA rating: R (for pervasive language and some sexuality).

Running time: 1:49.

Opening: Dec. 5.

Starring: Adrien Brody (Leonard Chess); Jeffrey Wright (Muddy Waters); Columbus Short (Little Walter); Mos Def (Chuck Berry); Beyonce Knowles (Etta James).

Directed and written by: Darnell Martin; edited by Peter C. Frank; photographed by Anastas N. Michos; music by Terence Blanchard; production design by Linda Burton; produced by Andrew Lack and Sofia Sondervan. A Sony Pictures release.


http://www.blacktree.tv

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[tommy2chips]

Okay I am going to rant. Blues music is in 80% of music. It is in 100% of all black music. Thomas Dorsey the father of gospel music put blues in gospel. Hevey Metal music has blues roots nearly half. I can go on and on

[totsy4you]

adrian brody is so handsome to me...

[XtinaMimiLover14]

Am I the only one that thinks Adrian Brody is sexy?!

[KARNEVILKLIQUE]

...I THINK ELVIS IS OK.....BUT YES HE'S THE KING....THE KING OF THIEVES....Everybody knows this

[surrealIdeal]

director looks creepy

[toosexyformydaks]

@riffraffactual Sorry , debate open again.. I think Willie Dixon is equally a king of the blues , since he wrote most of Muddy Waters material and played bass on it.... Chuck Berry also deserves a crown beside Elvis as a pioneer on rock and roll.

[yungsu100]

this is the most fucked up portrayal of great chicago musicians and also chess brothers fucker who made the movie did not do his homework

[riffraffactual]

Respond to this video... Why is there so much contention over who the king of rock and roll is. Muddy Waters is without a doubt the king of the blues. Elvis is the king of rock and roll. Get over it. It took both black and white to make rock and roll. Elvis happened to have what it took to make the world take notice. Hence he is the king. Thank you... end of debate.

[KennyParkz]

@tommy2chips Muddy waters influenced Stevie Ray Vaughan who influenced John Mayer and god knows how many where influenced by him... so Blues is pretty much everything the music is today.. (maybe except dance music [electro])

[coordinatorhacker]

If you agree with me, I do believe that they should make a movie for the following people. Of whom I would consider as legends of blues/jazz. They mold the modern era of music and many of them are now part of history.

Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Doris Day, Dusty Springfield, Bobby Darin, Nancy Sinatra...

Most of them belong to the same era.

If only one movie was able to link them all up.(but finding anyone who would be able to sing like Ella and Simone is hard)

[TiaraGirl3900]

Though I see some similarities between the two, seeing as which both Cadillac Records and Dreamgirls are based off of simliar true stories (Dreamgirls is based off of the Supremes and Mowtown) one thing to keep in mind creative licence was used to make everything interesting and flow better, but  they are two different things and cannot be looked at together.