{"id":5671,"date":"2024-10-12T04:48:59","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T04:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=5671"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:10:05","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:10:05","slug":"whats-love-got-to-do-with-it-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/12\/whats-love-got-to-do-with-it-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong> (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Touchstone\/Drama-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 118 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong domestic violence including rape, strong language, drug use, some sexuality, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Brian Gibson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kate Lanier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stanley Clarke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jamie Anderson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 25, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Jenifer Lewis, Chi McBride (as \u201cChi\u201d), Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Khandi Alexander, Pamala Tyson, Penny Johnson, Rae\u2019Ven Larrymore Kelly, Terrence Riggins, Rob LaBelle, James Reyne, Richard T. Jones, Shavar Ross, Damon Hines, Barry \u201cShabaka\u201d Henley, O\u2019Neal Compton.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $39.1M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0Normally, musical biopics aren\u2019t as harrowing a viewing experience as What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong>. Then again, What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong> isn\u2019t your typical musical biopic. Based on the autobiography I, Tina, it centers on the turbulent relationship between singer Tina Turner and her abusive husband Ike. Like all such relationships, it started out fine. Everything was great until it wasn\u2019t. I won\u2019t mince words. Ike, who died in 2007, was a creep. He was a drug-addicted control freak who took out his frustrations on his wife by beating on her. He was a talented musician, but a terrible person. Tina stayed with him for years before finally getting the courage to leave him for good. This is her story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m going to commit a slight breach of protocol by describing a powerful scene that occurs near the end of What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong>. After another fight en route to a gig in 1976, a bloodied and battered Tina (Bassett, Malcolm X) leaves the hotel (with nothing!) she\u2019s staying at with Ike (Fishburne, Boyz n the Hood) and goes to a Ramada Inn where she explains her situation to the manager and asks him to give her a room despite having only 32 cents on her person. She promises to pay him back as soon as she can. She starts to take off one her rings, but he stops her telling her it won\u2019t be necessary, he\u2019d be glad to help her. I heard this story before, but the way it plays out moved me like I was hearing it for the first time. This is a strong indicator of how great a movie What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong> truly is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Raised by her grandmother in Nutbush, TN, young Anna Mae Bullock (Kelly) shows early signs of becoming a musical superstar. In the local church choir, she really gets into the music, moving her body and singing loudly. A few years later, she moves to St. Louis to live with her mother (Lewis, Think Like a Man) and older sister (Stickney, New Jack City). This is where she first meets Ike, the star attraction at a local nightclub. He has a penchant for inviting attractive young women to sing with him, typically shooing them away after a few notes. When he hears Anna Mae sing, he\u2019s knocked for a loop. After he speaks with her mother (and money exchanges hands), she becomes part of the band. Later, she becomes Ike\u2019s girlfriend and after that, his wife. He renames her Tina Turner. Their act quickly becomes a success.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Privately, her life is a living nightmare. The smooth charmer turns into a scary monster. Jealous of all the attention she receives, he starts using cocaine which makes him become violent. He starts verbally and physically abusing Tina. Scared out of her mind, she stays with him and takes everything he dishes out including marital rape. It goes on for years. She tries to escape once with their children, but he finds them and drags her back home. It isn\u2019t until her friend Jackie (Calloway, Coming to America) introduces her to Buddhism that Tina begins to find the courage to stand up to Ike and eventually leave him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The scenes where Ike beats Tina are profoundly upsetting. They\u2019re also angering in the sense that the law did next to nothing to help abused women at the time (the 60s and 70s). Assuming it was reported, that is. Tina is basically trapped in an awful marriage and nobody is willing to help her. Friends, band members and back-up singers are either too scared of Ike or unwilling to give up the perks of being part of his inner circle. Even her own mother betrays her to Ike when she tries to run. Given her circumstances, you don\u2019t just sympathize with Tina; you actively encourage her to get away from Ike. A female audience member at the matinee I attended yelled, \u201cGirl, you need to do a John Bobbitt* on that MF!\u201d If you don\u2019t get the reference, just look below.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As Tina, Bassett is phenomenal. While the real Tina Turner provides the singing voice, the actress is still very much in synch with the singer she\u2019s portraying. Her encompassment of Tina\u2019s physicality, personality and soul when performing is astonishing. She gets that Tina\u2019s stage persona is the complete opposite of her private one, a frightened, vulnerable woman living in fear of the man who promised to love and cherish her. It\u2019s a truly amazing performance matched by Fishburne as Ike. The actor portrays him as a man who could be alternately charming and despicable. Beneath the confident fa\u00e7ade, he was highly insecure. He talks about an unhappy childhood defined by his father\u2019s murder. He needs to be the center of attention; he can\u2019t stand that it\u2019s all going to his wife. He\u2019s the one who made her; he should get the credit. It would have been easy to depict Ike Turner as a one-dimensional villain; instead, Fishburne gives him depth by displaying his many layers. It\u2019s easily his best performance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Brian Gibson (Breaking Glass, Poltergeist II), What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong> is a truly remarkable film. It\u2019s hard to take at times but Gibson balances things out nicely with some amazing musical performances. The two that immediately spring to mind are \u201cShake a Tailfeather\u201d and \u201cProud Mary\u201d. Then, of course, there\u2019s the title song performed at the end intercut with footage of the real Tina Turner. There\u2019s some question as to the factual veracity of What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong>. I can\u2019t say; I wasn\u2019t there. Ike denied a lot of his ex-wife\u2019s claims. However, since nobody ever sued Tina or autobiography co-writer Kurt Loder for libel, I\u2019m willing to believe her side of the story. Either way, there\u2019s no denying that What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It<\/strong> is excellent work.<\/p>\n

*= Right before the movie came out, Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband John\u2019s penis and threw it away in a field citing years of abuse as the reason. It was big news that summer (and the source of many Free Willy jokes).\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Touchstone\/Drama-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 118 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong domestic violence including rape, strong language, drug use, some sexuality, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Brian Gibson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kate Lanier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stanley Clarke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jamie Anderson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 25, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Jenifer Lewis, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Whats-Love-Got-to-Do-with-I.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5676,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions\/5676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}