It fleshes out Bessie Smith to a degree but certainly not in full measure. Latifah and Rainey can sure sing out, though. It's a pleasure to watch and hear them wail in a film that otherwise doesn't quite cut it.
... give Bessie a try ... to see Queen Latifah's performance and learn a bit about Bessie Smith's life and times, and turn in off if and when it starts to drag.
Presents the powerhouse vocalist as a blues belter in more ways than one -- a pugnacious scrapper with a fierce streak of racial pride, a sexual appetite that crossed gender lines and a hair-trigger temper that sometimes served her well...
Bessie isn't a perfect movie. But for HBO's purposes, it's a big-time noisemaker - one with the kind of show-stopping work that, when they start handing out trophies, isn't likely to leave its star singin' the blues.
