"Cadillac Records": A kick-ass-and-take-names tour de force

by Dwight Hobbes • Cadillac Records is killin'! Jeffrey Wright sings so much like Muddy Waters, I had to look up on the Internet and find out was it actually Wright singin'. He tears his ass. If Wright don't get nominated best actor—after 20-minutes-experience-and-all-of-a-sudden-she-can-act Jennifer Hudson walked off with a Oscar—the fix will be in. If you thought he acted up a storm in Shaft, his performance here leaps out from the screen, a mesmerizing, kick-ass-and-take-names tour de force. Whether or not you ever bought a Beyoncé record in your life, you are going to love the power, finesse and grit she brings to Etta James. The whole film is bad to the bone, with a supporting cast of Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Gabrielle Union as Geneva Wade, Columbus Short damned near stealing the movie as Little Walter, Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess and Mos Def, absolutely brilliant as Chuck Berry. This is not gon' sound right, but too bad: I fell off my chair when I learned a white woman, Darnell Martin, wrote and directed. She guided this movie like a missile, nailing the bull's-eye and creating a film exploding with authenticity. Bill Duke himself could not have done any better. If you ain't seen Cadillac Records yet, I don't know what you waitin' on, because it's going to knock you out.

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Published on 1/6/09. Photo of Beyoncé as Etta James ©2008 Sony Pictures.