Walk Hard

I just finished watching the Dewey Cox Story, and despite the fact that as I get older, the less tolerance I have for parodies, I have to admit that this one was pretty damn funny. Yes, it did have some stupid parts, I'm not going to pretend there weren't, but there were a few gut busting scenes. I don't often see something that actually makes me laugh out loud, but this movie had a few of them. The scene with the Temptations still makes me laugh when I think about it.

From what I had seen in the trailer, I didn't expect much from this. It looked too low brow for my tastes but after all of the positive reviews I decided to give it a shot. It could have had less juvenile humor and I would have been happier without the male full frontal nudity, and it could have been edited down about 10 minutes. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if I watched the directors cut or the theatrical version. Maybe the theatrical version didn't have those problems.

The timeliness of this movie couldn't have been better. Coming on the heels of an overabundance of musical biopics, I was ready for something to come along and skewer that genre. This movie had shades of the classic film Spinal Tap. And I can't say enough about the quality of acting from John C Reilly. He played the serious scenes convincingly, and was over the top when it was called for. I can't imagine the part being played by anyone else.

One of my favorite running gags was that every time a famous musician or band made an appearance, everyone in the scene was constantly referring to that musician or band by name. They must have said Buddy Holly 15 times in about a 3 minute scene. But even Buddy Holly was out shined by Elvis, every word out of his mouth nonsense. This movie masterfully played with the legends and reputations of real musicians.

So if you liked Spinal Tap and can tolerate a little crude humor, this is the movie for you. I was pleasantly surprised by it.