Blu-Ray Review: ‘Cadillac Records’ With Beyonce Knowles a Greatest Hits Album of Blues Legends

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Blu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – There’s a lot to like about the individual parts of “Cadillac Records,” now on Blu-Ray, but they never come together to form a cohesive sum. A frustratingly episodic film, “Records” crams too many stories into one movie, ending up more like a greatest hits album than a creative vision of its very own.

If each individual story in “Cadillac Records” causes young viewers to go back and learn more about the early days of rock and roll and the music of Etta James, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Little Walter than the film will have done some good, but I’ll never understand the logic of trying to shove all their stories into a film under two hours long.

Cadillac Records was released on Blu-Ray on March 10th, 2009.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

The end result is a spotty music biopic. As soon as you get interested in one person’s story, writer/director Darnell Martin is sporadically moving on to another one. The first story arc in “Cadillac Records” is easily the best because of the incredible Jeffrey Wright, one of the more consistently interesting actors of his generation.

Cadillac Records was released on Blu-Ray on March 10th, 2009. Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

Wright plays Muddy Waters and the first act of the film details his meeting Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) and their formation of Chess Records (nicknamed Cadillac Records because everyone who was on the label was successful enough to get a Caddy). “Cadillac Records” starts strong because of Wright’s typically riveting performance, the main reason to rent or buy the film on Blu-Ray.

It’s when the Chicago label expands and the rest of the band starts to get their solos that “Cadillac Records” gets choppy. First, Columbus Short feels forced as Little Walter, and, I’m sorry to be blunt, but I’m not buying what Beyonce Knowles tries to sell as Etta James. She’s got the voice, for sure, but she just doesn’t have the screen presence to play as big a personality as the pipes behind “At Last”.

Nearly every time that Wright is off-screen in “Cadillac Records,” it’s low-grade melodrama, the kind of thing we’ve seen a hundred times before, at least half of them done more believably. Everyone else in the movie is Wright’s backup band and they’re not very good. (With the slight exception of the perfectly cast Mos Def as Chuck Berry, but he falls victim to too big a personality with too little screen time.)

Ultimately, “Cadillac Records” is some good tunes and the beginning of some great stories. Dig deeper to learn more about Chess Records, but don’t expect to be too satisfied by what is essentially just a sampler disc.

The Sony Blu-Ray release of “Cadillac Records” is presented in 1080P with the film’s 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Special features include deleted scenes, “Playing Chess: The Making of Cadillac Records,” “Once Upon a Blues: Cadillac Records by Design,” a commentary by writer/director Darnell Martin, and the Blu-Ray Exclusive - The Chess Record Player, an interactive feature that allows you to create and share a list of songs featured in the movie.

The technical specs and special features work adequately to enhance the experience of “Cadillac Records”. It’s too bad that experience wasn’t what it could or should have been given the true stories and amazing music it chronicles.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com