The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Sure much of the music was lip-synched to actual old Little Richard music, but some clearly was not. So who was that singing the imitations? Whoever it was, was awesome! There is nothing whatsoever in the credits though. I'm particularly intrigued by the snippet of "Money Honey". The rock'n'roll bedlam depicted in this brief scene is wondrous. But it doesn't sound anything like Little Richard's 1960s recorded version. Who was playing and singing that in this movie?? I'd gladly go see that act any time! And, I agree with one of the other comments - it would be nice to see this great subject in a bigger budget, theater-oriented treatment (like, for example, "Ray"), with a more realistic and accurate depiction of the wild rock'n'roll life.

I know that the real story of Little Richard is a lot more thrilling than this maudlin and thoroughly average biopic. But then producer Little Richard was probably too reluctant to bring to light any sordid details of his life and just gave us a forgettable facsimile of his career highlights from the 50s and 60s.

This had to be one of Robert Townsends better, if not best, movie he'd ever directed. I never knew much about Little Richard's past and this movie does a very good job in explaining it. I say about as good as the Tina Turner story, What's Love Got to Do With it.It's starts out with Richard's child hood, his infatuation with dressing up in his mother's clothes, his father giving him beatings and the influence of the church. The film later goes into Richard's first hit recording "Tutti Fruitti". Pat Boone later goes on to record this song and many other Little Richard songs and the white radio stations play Boone's instead of Richards. Of course, this isn't the whole plot of the movie, though, just part of it.This movie is about as good as you can get when it comes to biography movies on Rock stars. It doesn't disappoint, not in my opinion. LEON does a very good job portraying Little Richard.-BGR

Leon was fantastic as always, this time playing Little Richard in his early years. The movie showed a fully fleshed out Little Richard without neglecting to fill the show with lots of great music. My only complaint is that the ending was a little abrupt - I was hoping for a 2-parter!