4/5 Cadillac Records
  by snickelfritz (Detroit, Michigan USA)
This is a very dark, I suspect, realistic story of the very early days of a part of the music business. The prejudice the African American artist had to fight, the struggle to be taken into the record fold.
It was a very difficult life they led, leading to drugs, violence, etc, the language is rough,...BUT, it is very interesting, and the music is amazing. Beonce is a perfect Etta James, maybe even better than Etta herself !!!

1/5 Never got the dvd
  by R. glass (ny)
I never got the dvd. The company said they would refund my money - haven't had a chance to see if that's been done.

5/5 Never would have known
  by tweedy bird (Lithonia, GA)
I've read the many of the reviews written before this one and I understand that there are many knowledgeable people when it comes to the inaccuracies of this movie. However, the criticisms are made on the acknowledgements of the facts and not on the bases of how well the actors portrayed their characters or how well the director directed this movie. Every documentary/biography is not going to always be completely factual because let's face it, these movies are made in Hollywood. I am a big fan of r&b music and its history. This movie was more than just entertaining to me. After seeing it, it made me want to go out and learn more about each individual person's journey from his/her beginning to his/her end. I never would have known about a Little Walter or a Muddy Waters had it not been for "Cadillac Records." I am a twenty-something year old woman and there are not too many people my age who were even interested in seeing this movie. It's sad that a movie this good and actors like Columbus Short, Jeffrey Wright, and Beyonce' Knowles did not receive the accolades they were due. I hope that in the near future there will be individual movies about Little Walter, Etta James, Chuck Berry, and all the other musicians in the movie because even though this movie was great, I truly believe that their lives were better than any fiction.

2/5 Cliches Overwhelm Story
  by F. W. Young (Toronto, Ontario)
The people behind "Cadillac Records" had a great idea - a film about the founding and growth of Chess records is fertile ground indeed. The home of some of the greatest music ever made, most of which was made at a fascinating time in American history by a series of African-American musicians who had escaped the South while working for the son of Polish Jews....

There's a lot of material here. Unfortunately, the film tries to jam all of it in. The first half of the movie is carried along by the music (some of which is horribly lip synched by the way), but when the tone of "Cadillac Records" changes, the melodrama piles up in a way that is utterly unconvincing.

It would have been far better for the film makers to focus on one of Chess' stars and their relationship with BOTH Chess brothers. Instead, we get a series of cliched and entirely predictable scenes involving historical figures. Look - there's Muddy Waters giving Little Walter his first taste of whiskey (shades of "The Dewey Cox Story"). Look, there's Howlin' Wolf in his battered pick up truck. Oh dear, Chuck Berry's music just integrated a concert by getting those white and black kids to dance together.

And don't even get me started on the overwrought scenes with Beyonce as Etta James.

By trying to cram everything in the movie, the film makers drained all of the emotion from the story. By the time Little Walter dies in Muddy Waters' wife's arms, I was tempted to turn away. But the music was so good, I figured I'd stick it out to the end of the movie.

Sadly, "Cadillac Records" piles up so many cliches that it ultimately becomes meaningless.

4/5 A compelling story, but just an "okay" movie
  by Axton Blessendon, Jr. (Canton, OH)
"Cadillac Records"
(2009)
------------------------------------------
Let me start by saying that I am a huge, lifelong fan of Chess Records, particularly of Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter, as well as Sugar Pie DeSanto and others. Having a movie that celebrates this fabled, groundbreaking, immensely important, immensely influential blues powerhouse is a good thing. But, like almost all "historical" films and biopics, this is riddled with unnecessary factual errors and other shortcomings. Also, it just wasn't as great as it could have and should have been.

I think perhaps the biggest problem was with the portrayal of label co-founder Leonard Chess (and, um, hey, what happened to his brother, who also ran the label?). I think Adrien Brody, who I like and respect as an actor, was badly miscast in this role. He had none of the rough edges that I image a figure like Chess would have had, none of that big city ruggedness or tough-guy street smarts: it just wasn't there. He also seemed to have little chemistry with any of his fellow actors, and little feel for the role. I also imagine that a guy like Chess would have been immensely charming and likable, even when he was jerking you around, but I didn't get that from Brody's portrayal, either -- his Chess was saintly and businesslike, but not a guy you'd want to have a drink with, or record for. Ah, what someone like Paul Rudd could have done with this part!

Also, there's the tiresome Hollywood habit of mucking with the facts when making a "historical" film. Other reviewers have noted several problems... what stood out for me was the general timeline: the Beach Boys are famous before Elvis Presley; Little Walter is killed sometime (apparently) around 1965 (instead of '68, when he actually died) and the big wowzer ending is when Muddy Waters & Co. are invited to tour Europe in the late 'Sixties, after Chess Records had been sold and the whole shebang was long over (in fact, pioneering blues musician, Waters included, had been touring Europe for several years by then, and had already been lionized by the Rolling Stones and the British blues bands for half a decade... The film shows this happening much later than it really did.)

The whole messing up the facts thing baffles me. It seems that Hollywood screenwriters have given themselves a blank check to re-write whatever they want to in historically-oriented films, in the interest of "tweaking" the script, giving it more dramatic oomph, etc., and they will sarcastically remark that all of us who complain are just being too literal and taking things too seriously. The thing is, though, that details *do* matter, and if you don't want to stick to the facts, then why pick a historical topic for your film? If you think you've got a good story to begin with, shouldn't it be good enough to tell without blatantly distorting the facts? It's laziness on their part, not creative genius.

Anyway, "Cadillac Records" was fun enough, but it could have, and should have, been great. It's worth watching, and hopefully it will succeed in turning some folks onto the classic urban blues recordings of the 1950s. It got me to dig out some of my old LPs. (Axton, Planet Krankulon)