For years, Anthony Anderson was marginalized as the funny friend, the comedic relief…even in The Departed. Time has made people aware of his depth of talent though. blackish merged his funny side with his ability to really act. And now, finally, Beats is totally reliant on Anderson’s ability to carry the day, which he mostly succeeds in doing.
Anderson plays Romelo Reese, a mediocre security guard at a school on Chicago’s South Side. It’s clear early on that Romelo doesn’t want to do this job; he’s only there because his estranged wife Vanessa (Emayatzy Corinealdi) is the principal. Out trying to get truant kids into school, Romelo finds August Monroe (Khalil Everage) making beats in his room. Really GREAT beats. Romelo is drawn to this creative spirit, but there’s complications, including August’s clear PTSD from a horrific event in his past, which also makes Carla (Uzo Aduba), August’s mother, hyper protective of her son.
Beats crams a LOT of storylines into its under 2 hour runtime. Underfunded schooling, PTSD, Chicago’s music politics, family drama, relationship issues, artistic creation. They’re all a part of Beats. That many story lines means you’re introducing more than your fair share of characters too. So either way, unfortunately, Beats has to sacrifice on the character front or on the plot front, which hurts your characters either way. Anderson clearly is the star in Netflix’s eyes, so most of the plots that don’t revolve around him suffer most. Uzo Aduba, who’s spectacular on Orange Is the New Black, is completely wasted in this movie, relegated to “overprotective mother.” Ashley Jackson exists in this movie to leave her friends and give August repeated chances to sweep her off her feet. I’d say she’s the African-American manic pixie dream girl, but to insinuate she’s quirky would mean she would have been given something to do in the movie. In general, Beats really disservices its female cast by keeping most of them becoming characters, or literally killing them off.
A lot of Beats’s successes rest on the shoulders of Anthony Anderson, without whom this story would be at best a waste of time. Anderson sinks his teeth into his meaty backstory about a guy who’s tasted success and is struggling with failure, relishing the chance to prove he can be a leading man. When the movie slowly realizes that Anderson is the star of the movie, Beats comes alive with Anderson’s reserved and grounded performance. To the actor’s credit, he never amps it up unnecessarily, completely investing in the material he is given…even the “let’s make everyone happy in a completely unearned way” ending.
Beats wants to mean something important. And Anthony Anderson almost gets us there. This movie feels like it needs a do over on it’s story, but using the same music. I didn’t say before, but August isn’t lying; he totally spits fire in this movie that’ll make you wanna immediately find a dance floor.