Following a childhood tragedy, Dewey Cox follows a long and winding road to music stardom. Dewey perseveres through changing musical styles, an addiction to nearly every drug known and bouts of uncontrollable rage.
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Reviews
Nice effects though.
Just perfect...
How sad is this?
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Some interesting decisions here from Judd Apatow and company. They start with just the essential choice to parody a modestly well-know music biography - "Walk the Line" which had come out only 2 years prior. Unlike "Spaceballs", the Mel Brooks parody of perhaps the most famous films of all time and one rife for satire likely the vast majority of film-goers won't even catch most of the allusions to Johnny Cash's story such as the death of his brother who haunted him his whole life. Also, Cash's name continues to carry artistic cache unlike a John Denver or even Elvis Presley so some viewers may have found themselves offended by the send-up of Cash's life story. Another interesting choice involves using a script made up of only jokes until the final 10-15 minutes of run-time when the film becomes very sentimental finishing on an incongrously uplifting final performance of a legitimate tune. The strategy seemed to be to launch one joke after another with the idea that enough will land to make the overall experience funny. While there is some sophisticated humor (Dewey's first wife played by Kristen Wiig promises to support his muscial career no matter what before nearly instantly trying to get a legitimate job for him in a slaughterhouse even after he has become wildly sucessful), for the most part - including the actual name of the film - it is a long series of racial, scatalogical, and genital jokes. There are many Python-esque absurdist moments as well particularly focused on fourth-wall breaking (much is made of John C. Reily playing Dewey at 14, 19, and 21). In short, probrably more of a party movie for groups enjoying some inerbriates.
This is one of the all time funny movies. Every joke works. If you are a fan of older music you will appreciate it even more! I guess for being a fan, "I'm guilty as charged!"
I can't believe it took ten years for me to finally see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Was it worth the wait? Probably not. This has Judd Apatow's fingerprints all over it, having co-written the script and served as producer. Long story short....overall it's awfully silly. I was hoping for a little bit more substance or bite, but that isn't to say it's awful. Walk Hard has some very funny moments, and that would include the Beatles segment which I found quite amusing. I'll admit quite a bit of the music was actually pretty good, including the duets with Darlene (Jenna Fischer). On the other hand, the grand finale number was a big flop in my book, and did we really need all those scenes with Dewey in his underwear? Fans of Judd Apatow's "sensibility" may like this more than I did.
I'm not a fan of farces, and to be honest, I'm not that crazy about John C. Reilly, but one thing you can be sure of, is that when I see Judd Apatow's name attached to something, I'll eventually see it. Walk Hard is a mocumentary about an Elvis Presley type persona, whose music spanned an evolved over a 50 year career. As styles changed, so did Dewey Cox, his outfits, personality, and his music, it was all very clever. I especially liked when he ran into the Beatles at a monastery in India. Walk Hard has some very funny moments, but this film would be nothing without John C. Reilly. It seems like he's in everything these days and most of the roles are quite forgettable, but Dewey Cox is easily his crowning achievement. Reilly is an actor I don't care for, in a style of film I don't care for, yet I was still very amused by the whole thing. The one negative I can give the film, is that is was exceptionally long for this type of film and it spent far too much time on the early stages of his life. The end of the film felt rushed to avoid it becoming a three hour movie, which to me suggests that maybe it should have been split in two. The inherit problem with comedies is that the longer they are, the more tiresome they become. While I enjoyed the first half of the movie a lot, by the end I really couldn't wait for it to end. Farcical comedies are usually way out there and Walk Hard has some of that, but by and large it was an interesting take on fifty years of American pop culture. The film and it's star far exceeded my expectations and for what it was, I was impressed.