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Cadillac Records
TriStar Pictures (Sony)


6.8

based on 28 reviews
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based on 13 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for pervasive language and some sexuality

Starring Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Beyonce Knowles, Gabrielle Union, Columbus Short, Cedric the Entertainer, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Eamonn Walker, and Mos Def

In this tale of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950's Chicago, Cadillac Records follows the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry. (Sony Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Musical
WRITTEN BY:	Darnell Martin
DIRECTED BY:	Darnell Martin
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: December 5, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The ensemble is stupendous--howlingly great--and the music goes deep.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

This movie is crowded and sprawling, and if it rambles sometimes, that's just fine. Like those big, boxy Caddies (and like Howlin’ Wolf, if he did say so himself), it's built for comfort, not for speed. It hums, it purrs and it roars.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gene Stout

The movie's biopic aspect is multiplied by the sheer number of players who made Chess the first family of Chicago blues, R&B and rock 'n' roll...That all of them were later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame attests to their enormous influence on popular music and culture.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's an enjoyable ramble, with a feel for what made the early days of rock as wild as any that followed.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The film suffers at times from biopic-itis – the narrative unfolds with the requisite heartbreak carefully apportioned – but it's always eye-catching.

Slate Dana Stevens

One of the strengths of Cadillac Records, written and directed by Darnell Martin, is that it's a movie about music by someone who genuinely seems to enjoy listening to music.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Such an exhilarating, spirited piece of work that its embellishments and omissions cease to matter.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

In watching this film, it's best not to worry much about the film's fidelity to history but rather simply lean back and enjoy one great jam session on film.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Cadillac Records is an account of the Chess story that depends more on music than history, which is perhaps as it should be. The film is a fascinating record of the evolution of a black musical style, and the tangled motives of the white men who had an instinct for it.

Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson

Mos Def makes a terrific Berry, all flash and confidence, and Wright offers a memorably soulful take on Waters, whether he's strutting, singing, suffering or all three. Walker's Howlin' Wolf is a deep-throated, pride-filled bear of a man who dominates the screen.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A satisfying combination of great songs and strong dramatic performances.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The film's most memorable performance is by Eamonn Walker, who is scarily good as the singer known as Howlin' Wolf.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Has buoyancy to spare. It's filled with bumps and scratches. But in the manner of a nicked old LP, its gnarly surface and warps-and-all sound evokes real life.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

The electrifying music helps camouflage the screenplay's hyperbole.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Cadillac Records may be a mess dramatically, but it's a wonderful mess, and not just because of the great music. The people who made it must have harbored the notion, almost subversive in a season of so many depressing films, that going out to the movies should be fun.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Cadillac Records bobs and weaves, strides and duckwalks, samples and smiles on the sounds that made urban Chicago such a blues melting pot.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Brody plays Chess as a slightly crooked but well-meaning musical cheerleader without fully emerging as a character.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's a hell of a story, and Cadillac Records wants to tell it so badly that it threatens to warp the narrative out of recognition.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The film features too little about Berry (an engaging Mos Def), who crosses over to great fame.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

There are plenty of small pleasures to be found throughout Darnell Martin's feature, but a compelling storyline featuring three-dimensional characters is not among them.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

Director Darnell Martin (I Like it Like That) races through the script's bullet points with a brisk superficiality that leaves crucial plot points underdeveloped and unresolved, and refuses to engage the dark side of Leonard Chess’ paternalism.

Variety John Anderson

Most of the details are right-on in Cadillac Records, though the director's efforts to sell it sometimes steers the film into mawkish or hokey territory.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

There are certain films - let's call them Road Map Movies - that drive you directly from point A to point B to point C, with barely a stop for gas. Cadillac Records is such a film: You see all the major landmarks, but how enlightening can a road trip be if you never even get off the highway?

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's all a blur, except for the music. That's workin'.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

It's a rousing, fast-paced tale, told with a modicum of verve and packed with colorfully flawed, occasionally heroic and even tragic characters. It also feels disappointingly bloated and too fast-paced by half.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Martin attempts to present the whole oversized Chess story, but instead winds up reducing the lives and art that give it shape.

TV Guide Matt Collar

We never get a real sense of what made these recordings so different or revolutionary. Part of the problem is that re-recorded versions of songs by the actors were used in the film, with vastly mixed results that never match the ferocity and excitement of the original tracks.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

With everything so wrong, how can there be anything right about Cadillac Records?

The average user rating for this movie is 6.8 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

MPK gave it an8:
I expected the standard musical biography; unknown singer rises to popularity, has trouble, rebounds and finds success. That's part of what happens in Cadillac Records. What I wasn't expecting was the performances by Jeffrey Wright, Beyonce, and especially Columbus Short. Knockout singing and acting and great music. I don't care that it might not be historically accurate, it was entertaining.

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Cadillac Records TriStar Pictures (Sony)

Cadillac Records
TriStar Pictures (Sony)