Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story 2007
This was a mostly overlooked movie that got good reviews, but maybe suffered from being a little too easy of a target (music biopics like Ray and Walk the Line). Plus, while John C. Reilly is great in the title role, he doesn’t have a lot of star power. So it turns out the movie was mostly a flop. However there is much more to this movie than at first glance.
First, it is a Judd Apatow movie, made with his Freaks and Geeks cohort Jake Kasdan. This seems to automatically bring a large supporting cast of their buddies, including, in one scene, the Beatles being played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman, and Justin Long. There are other crazy cameos, like Jack White of The White Stripes, playing Elvis Presley.
The movie is funny and pretty much stays that way throughout. It starts with some great footage of Dewey Cox and his talented older brother doing ridiculously dangerous things and talking about the brother’s bright future before, naturally, tragedy strikes. The music scene is always ripe for parody, and this movie plays a little like a cross of Spinal Tap and Airplane. There are a lot of gags, but there is also some great improvisational character humor. Meanwhile, the production is first rate with great sets, costumes (from every imaginable music era), hair, and even really good makeup as Cox and his wife (played by Jenna Fischer from The Office) age (Reilly enters playing Cox at 14 (a joke in itself) all the way up until his 70’s). Even the songs are pretty good, including a great knockoff-off of Bob Dylan.
The problem with the movie is that there are a lot of drug references, bad language, and a lot of nudity. And not just the good kind, but lots of male nudity including more of John Reilly that I would ever want to see. The male nudity itself is a joke making fun of Hollywood always showing women, but at most showing a man’s backside. Well, there is a lot more of the front side here.
The DVD extras are good and if you like the movie, the commentary is pretty good. Not to be missed is the line-o-rama where improvised lines that didn’t make it into the movie are shown and just add to the movie itself. Despite some of the vulgarity, I thought this was a superior movie to other Apatow comedies of 2007 like Superbad and Knocked Up and will give it an A-.
Written: 11 Nov 2008