Sunday, October 18, 2015

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story


Starring: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, & Tim Meadows
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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.

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