‘Cadillac Records’ is as flat as a vinyl LP

Alonso Duralde Film critic

While it tells the story of an exciting period in American pop culture, “Cadillac Records” winds up being so trite, tidy and two-dimensional that you would swear you were watching a late-night infomercial for the great music of Chess Records. All that’s missing is a toll-free number and a paid walk-on by Frankie Avalon.

More’s the pity, since the story of Polish immigrant Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) and how he made a fortune on “race music” by nurturing the careers of Muddy Waters and other blues-rock legends certainly could have translated to a compelling screen story. As it stands, however, “Cadillac Records” feels uncomfortably like “Walk Hard” played completely, deadly straight.

As Chess turns his Chicago junkyard into a “colored” nightclub, sharecropper Waters (Jeffrey Wright) plays and sings for a man recording folk music for the Library of Congress. Hearing his music played back to him for the first time inspires the guitar player to leave Mississippi and head to Chicago to find his fortune as a musician. After he plays at Chess’ club, the nightlife impresario drags him into a recording studio, and history is made.

What follows is known by anyone who’s ever watched VH1’s “Behind the Music,” with Little Walter (Columbus Short), Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles), Chuck Berry (Mos Def) and the rest trooping through the studio, going on tour, getting rich, doing drugs, breaking up marriages, getting arrested and watching white acts rip off their music. There’s a template movies like this follow, and here there’s not one note of deviation.

Quick facts Starring: Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Gabrielle Union Director: Darnell Martin Run time: 1 hour, 49 minutes MPAA rating: R

There are plenty of howlin’ moments in writer-director Darnell Martin’s script that have nothing to do with Mr. Wolf, from the painful narration read by Cedric the Entertainer (he describes Muddy Waters as a man “every man wanted to be, and every woman wanted to love” and gives Cliff’s Notes on mid-century racism) to the appearance of some pasty Brits who meet Waters on the sidewalk in front of Chess and tell him, “We named our group after one of your songs — ‘Rolling Stone.’” And do we honestly believe that Etta James didn’t understand what the self-explanatory “All I Could Do Was Cry” was about until Leonard Chess explained it to her?

The musical performances are sprightly enough, but they’ll all make you wish you were listening to the real deal. Knowles is a talented singer, but let’s face it, she’s no Etta James. (If you were wondering how she landed the role, her executive producer credit on “Cadillac Records” should explain all.) Her performance seems like something of a natural progression from “Dreamgirls” — in that film, she basically played Diana Ross; here, she’s essentially playing Diana Ross playing Billie Holiday in “Lady Sings the Blues.”

Brody, Wright and a jaunty Mos Def — as well as the always tragically underutilized Gabrielle Union, as Waters’ unhappy wife — do what they can to elevate the material, but it’s a lost cause. “Cadillac Records” is as flat as the LPs you’d be better off listening to for the 109 minutes required to watch the film.

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