My knowledge of Chess records is relatively limited except that I know it was the record company who signed Chuck Berry. I do know now, that some of the things that happened in the movie are not fact based, but the movie made me set out to find that out. Also, only a few years ago I was not at all a fan of Adrien Brody but have slowly come around on him.
Leonard Chess(Brody) seems to have one goal in life: get rich enough to afford a Cadillac. Everything after that is gravy. He owns a nightclub but it gets shot up and thus ends that. Instead of pressing charges on who got it shot up, Chess offers the guy a deal. That guy happened to be Muddy Waters(Jeffery Wright) owner of the fingers that could pluck a guitar like never before and he happened to be band mates with Little Walter(Columbus Short, in what should be a star making performance), a man who could play the harmonica like you wouldn't believe. With Waters as his top talent, the business savvy Chess bribes a few djs, makes a few records, blows up his club to get the insurance and soon he has his own record label and recording studio. He breaks the bank making "race music." He rewards his acts with a fresh Cadillac every year, but does not tell them it comes out of their royalty checks. Soon, Chess records is signing artists like Howlin Wolf(Eamon Walker), Chuck Berry(Mos Def) and eventually Etta James(Beyonce). Waters is barely making any money, but Leonard seems to be rolling in it and like any music biopic drugs, sex and bad business signal the downfall of the label.
Trying to tackle 2 major stories plus 3 or 4 smaller stories is a tough task, but somehow Cadillac records manages to weave the stories together pretty well. The acting is all top notch with Brody and Wright anchoring some of the wilder and more fierce performances from Short and Beyonce. Mos Def's Chuck Berry is a jokester and Berry's well documented love for white women is factored into the movie. The movie tells an important story about American Music history and I am sad more people are not going out to see it. This is record label that helped turn the blues into rock and roll. This is record label that inspired The Rolling Stones and inspired millions of people everywhere to pick up a guitar or a harmonica and the music is great. Every scene that takes place in the recording studio is on fire especially Columbus Short's rendition of "My babe" and Beyonce ripping her way through "At Last." This is the kind of movie that you watch and wish you could sing that well or play an instrument that way. It gives you an awful lot of respect for musicians and what they are able to do.
The movie is narrated by Cedric the Entertainer who plays Willie Dixon, the principal song writer for Chess Records and that is an interesting choice I think. The narrator is part of the story, but far enough removed from the immediate action that we trust him and his point of view. Eventually, Chess Records gets bought out because Leonard was losing money and he did not treat his acts very well, and our narrator informs us that he successfully sued Chess Records for back royalties, so it does give us a second of pause on how much we can trust him. We also learn that Berry did get money from the Beach Boys for stealing his riffs for their beach music. This movie only made me want a full Chuck Berry biopic because his story is so interesting. He broke the race barrier and then when he went to jail it all went away and then a bunch of white artists took from him and thus began rock and roll to the rest of America.
I know this movie has a limited appeal, but it really is worth the time and the money to watch. Brody and Wright do great work together spanning 30 or so years with each other and the music is really sexy and fun and the movie works in that way as well. Cadillac Records is going to get overlooked this season, but I hope people go to it and watch it later and when they do I hope they are like me and go searching for the truth with what happened with this seminal record company and recording studio.
Final Grade: B+
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