Ethan Hawke plays legendary jazz musician Chet Baker in this gritty documentary about the man’s trumpet playing comeback after taking a severe beating to the face.
Hawke just keeps adding to his list of great performances, and this one might be his most ambitious. He learned how to play trumpet for the movie, impressively miming to the music on the soundtrack. He also captures the essence of a man addicted to a dangerous drug, basically a good man who is slowly killing himself. Carmen Ejogo plays Jane, a combo-character of women in Baker’s life. She does a nice job of showing the kind of patience required to deal with an addict. The movie also contains some of the best, contentious scenes between a father and son I have seen in recent years.
Stephen McHattie has just a couple of scenes as Baker’s dad but, man, are they memorably nasty. Miles Davis (Kedar Brown) was a devastating presence in Baker’s life, effectively depicted here. I play the trumpet, and have played for many years. It’s a complex instrument, and director Robert Budreau and Hawke do a nice job of portraying those difficulties. I had a big gap in my teeth when I was younger, and it made playing the instrument hard. Baker had a missing tooth in his heyday, and dentures in his latter career. He still sounded cooler than most.
Much of the film (like the recent Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead) is fictitious, but no matter. There’s a spirit to this movie that is very real.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2016.
Not a documentary but a great film!
No documentary. Rather insulting to the real people and real story of his come back.
Read ‘Chet Baker: The Missing Years’ if you want the true characters, motivation and friends who helped Chet through the most difficult of challenges for a trumpeter to surmount.
After listening to Chet for years, both Singing and speaking voice, Hawke doesn’t come close to the nuance of Chet’s sound. He certainly doesn’t capture his personality. Hawke plays it more like a coke addict rather a heroin addict. Too frenetic and cocky. Chet was pretty mellow. There’s a whole lot more to the story of his addiction as well.
This movie was glossy and what Hollywood and the non musician would think a trumpeter would do if lost the ability to play. That was so ridiculous and over the top. The bleeding mouth bathtub scene with the blood coming out of the bell, the scenes playing on a cliff, running on the beach with the trumpet, laying on a park bench playing to the sky…all so silly. Chet didn’t do that nor would any horn player. Not to mention the countless people this fictional character, Jane was rolled into. What in the world?? I’m sure Chet’s wife, Carol hates this movie.
It was just such a bad script and movie. Hawke plays it like Hawke playing Chet over-acting his usually Oscar hunting performance. Musician movies often get it wrong. This one was on another level of bad.
Sorry Chet. They should have told your real story.
http://www.amazon.com/Chet-Baker-Missing-Years-Me…