Remember when Jamie Foxx was back on In Living Color? Well it might surprise you to know that comedy was something that wasn’t the first thing on his mind when he was younger. He initially wanted to play football for the Dallas Cowboys. Telling jokes was something he did for his class as his teacher would allow this if they’d behaved on any particular day. But as he grew up he learned how to play the piano, how to be funny, and was involved in sports but never really went any further with it than high school. His acting however and his propensity for being funny carried him much further as he went on to star on In Living Color and then graduated to the movies eventually. From that point on he became a much bigger star as he began his career being ridiculously funny before making his way into one dramatic role after the next, proving that he had the kind of versatile talent that could make him a big star.
Here are a few of the best movies from his career thus far.
5. Django Unchained
Django Unchained is pure Tarantino, meaning it has clear racial tones, lots of blood and gore, expletives that are tossed about with every other word in some case, and violence aplenty. But there’s some story laced in there too if you really do your best to pay attention to more than just the thrills, as Django is someone with a past and who desires revenge in a way that’s almost biblical in how he hands it down to those most deserving. His partnership with Dr. Schultz is kind of comical but also very meaningful as Schultz gives him the means and the ability to take his revenge and even accompanies him as far as fate can take him.
4. Collateral
This is the kind of movie that asks, ‘what have you done with your life?’, considering that it takes a professional hitman to remind Max that he’s done nothing worthwhile in his existence and has plans that might as well be a fable he tells himself will one day come true. Max doesn’t have a lot of ambition, at least not enough to do more than go to work each day and hope and dream that something will come along to brighten up his life. Of course the day he meets a woman that perks him up a bit has to be the same day that he meets the hitman that will remind him that his life has amounted to nothing. And of course that’s the spark that gets him to change.
3. Law Abiding Citizen
When a person loses the only part of his life that matters anything to him, his family in other words, the world tends to fall away and all that’s left is the need for revenge. Clive watched his wife and daughter be murdered in front of him, and yet justice can’t help him. But when he sees that justice has turned a blind eye, he decides to bring the whole mess down on their heads as recompense for the destruction of his life. Normally you might see such movies as little more than threats and a couple of deaths at most, but Clive manages to kill a large number of people before he’s finally consumed by his own rage, a reminder that a man with nothing left is a force of nature unto himself.
2. Any Given Sunday
Quarterbacks do come and go in pro football, but those that are great take time and effort to really develop. Willie is the kind of guy that rode the bench for much of his career to start with, and once he gets a taste of stardom he has no intention of going back. The only problem is that his resentment and ego conspire to make him one of the biggest jerks in the game, at least until he starts listening to his teammates, and his coach. At that point he pushes his ego down and finally begins to realize that he’s part of a team, and that if he looks out for them, they will look out for him. You don’t protect a quarterback because he’s the star, you protect him because you believe in him as a leader.
1. Ray
Ray Charles was simply brilliant. This movie did manage to change a couple of things just for the sake of the film, but Jamie Foxx got to work with the man himself in order to get things as accurate as possible in order to deliver a movie that was absolutely wonderful and detailed the life of a legend in a way that was both amazing and gripping all in the same time. It didn’t paint Ray as the hero or even as the villain, but instead it showed him as a man that was flawed in some ways and rather tragic in others. It showed him as a human being, which is the best representation any movie like this can give.
Jamie Foxx has become one of the better actors of his generation, no doubts.In Living Color
Follow Us
