by JP
This is the story of a musical legend; a man who started with nothing but raw talent; who overcame adversity and disability to reach dizzying heights of success; and whose battles with his personal demons and the temptations of stardom threatened to take it all away.
If this sounds familiar, that's exactly the point. Writer/director Jake Kasdan and co-writer Judd Apatow have set their comedic sights on the seemingly bottomless genre of musical biopics and created Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. In charting the life of the fictitious Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly), Kasdan and Apatow underline the formulaic nature of a genre that has become an award-season sure thing for movie studios (as well as money in the bank for record companies and music publishers).
Though Walk Hard most closely parallels the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, Cox's story is a pastiche of numerous rock biographies. Music fans will enjoy playing "guess-the-reference" through the many ups and downs of Cox's career, from his stint as a Dylanesque singer of ludicrously cryptic "issue" songs, to his Brian Wilson-like retreat into obsessively self-indulgent record production, and subsequent stint as star of his own flashy variety show a la Glen Campbell. Slavish attention to period detail, as well as deceptively authentic original songs performed by Reilly, further blur the line between Walk Hard and the real-life stories it lampoons.
The chief reason Walk Hard works is due to the casting of John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox. Having already established a solid reputation for dependable dramatic supporting work (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Magnolia, The Aviator), Reilly has also revealed his considerable comedic abilities in more straightforward comedies like Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. His effectiveness as Cox lies in the ways he plays it straight; by approaching the role of Cox with the same level of focus and dedication he would give to portraying a flesh-and-blood icon, Walk Hard is elevated from what could have easily been just another phoned-in showpiece for a more limited comedy star.
If only the rest of the movie showed as much restraint as Reilly. There are plenty of well-earned laughs in both the writing and performances - particularly from Saturday Night Live vet Tim Meadows, who as Cox's longtime drummer delivers a series of hysterical (and unheeded) warnings about the effects of various controlled substances. But while much of the humor of Walk Hard comes from the manner in which Kasdan and Apatow underline the inanities of the biopic formula, their need to underline nearly every joke can come off as a smug inability to reign in their own hilariousness. At times, this borders dangerously close to turning their movie into a send-up not only of music biopics, but of comedies in general. Despite these tendencies, Walk Hard remains a infectiously fun, highly re-watchable exercise in irreverence.
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