WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY
Director: Jake Kasdan Stars: John C Reilly, Jenny Fischer, Raymond J Barry, Margot Martindale, Harold Ramis, Tim Meadows, Jack Black, David Krumholtz, Jason Schwarzmann, Kirsten Wiig, Justin Long, Paul Rudd, Chris Parnell, Frankie Muniz, Odette Yustman, John Michael Higgins, Jonah Hill, Jane Lynch
Reviewed by PETER MALONE
This is a movie spoof but a spoof with a difference. It is better than most.
While watching those funny Leslie Nielsen send-ups of all kinds of genres (Repossessed, Spy Hard…) or the hit and miss, often crass, Scary Movie or Epic Movie series, a nagging question recurs. Would this have been better if the makers took the spoofing more seriously and produced an intelligent parody? And, if they had actors of substance, would that make a difference to the quality of the send-up.
Walk Hard provides the answer: yes.
Of course, it has a solid basis in the biopic of Johnny Cash, Walk The Line. The plot of Walk Hard follows Walk The Line with quite some attention to detail. However, with John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, the film has a first-rate actor who can do the serious as well as the comic and makes a good fist of the serio-comic, earning himself a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical.
The film also has its absurd moments, especially when Dewey cuts his brother in half with a machete and has a heartfelt conversation with the torso. But, the absurdities of the life and career of a country and western star, the women, the drugs, the self-absorption, also get the serio-comic treatment.
Jenna Fischer is the equivalent of June Carter. Raymond J. Barry as Dewey’s unforgiving father and Margo Martindale as his doting mother have good roles.
Reilly did all his own singing, which is also creditable – and the title song also earned a Golden Globe nomination.
Those audiences who wanted a kind of Scary Movie comedy were disappointed – but Walk Hard has something to say as well as something to make us smile.