Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

From humble beginnings in Springberry, Alabama, fictional rock 'n' roll Goliath Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) was born, and director Jake Kasdan and co-writer Judd Apatow, a man who dips his hands in every comedic honey pot these days, have crafted an epic movie to match Cox' larger than life persona. With exaggerated satire and a barrage of blink-and-you'll-miss-them jokes, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story pokes fun at the formulaic biopics which run rampant these days, like those of Ray and Walk The Line's ilk. The latter is blazingly evident during performance set-ups pulled straight from James Mangold's Oscar-winning film, including a slew of shots featuring Cox in silhouette with his guitar, looking very much like the Man in Black himself. Cox' decades-long career is punctuated by ridiculous tragedy—like losing his brother in a machete accident—and joyous success that inevitably gives way to drug addiction, infidelity, and isolation in his later years. With every Madonna-esque rebirth that Cox experiences, Reilly's hyperbolic mockery doesn't bend; it just gets progressively more fantastic.

Cox' ascent toward superstardom starts with an innocent performance at his high school talent show. He sings about holding hands but conservative Southern elders assume that double-entendre is at the heart of his virginal crooning. They're mistaken, of course, but fear not, because there's suggestive word play abound in Walk Hard (as with the hero's phallic moniker). Kasdan didn't enlist a young'un to play fourteen-year-old Cox; Reilly assumes the role as a pointed visual joke about continuity problems that plague most biopics. Attacking the form and staid plot development that traditional non-fiction films suffer from is central to Walk Hard's savvy. Once he's pushed out of town by his father and said elders, Cox makes good on his vow to be "double great" in memory of his dead brother, writing hit after hit and launching the success machine into motion.

Even in his dramatic roles, Reilly has always displayed an affinity for comedy, from playing a porn star for laughs in Boogie Nights to the dim-witted, subtly funny spouse of Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl. Here, his goofy skills shine without any depressing subtext; he rides each gag for all it's worth, with a vivacious twinkle in his eye and a dedication to physical antics that finds him ripping out sinks in anger and scaling buildings in skin-tight underwear. This no holds barred approach to performance also surfaces during the film's soaring, infinitely catchy musical numbers, where Reilly's solid vocal skills are showcased.

If Reilly is Walk Hard's heart, then it's only so because he's propped up by a cast of hysterical co-stars and bit players, most notably Tim Meadows, who has been sadly underused in film since his Saturday Night Live heyday. His perverse cautionary descriptions of various drugs are some of the movie's best moments. Meadows is joined by a who's who of master jokesters, including The Office's Jenna Fischer playing a virtual June to Reilly's Johnny, plus cameos from Jack White, Jason Schwartzman, Jack Black, and Apatow-regulars Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill.

The film's parade of crisp dialogue and quotable one-liners stand on their own, but Kasdan continually draws our attention back to the overarching satire. Seeing Cox morph into different music archetypes, from '50s-era crooner to tortured, acid-dropping hippie, is a laughable field day for biography-fiends. His transformations are ludicrous, with Kasdan offering conspicuous commentary on the larger spoof at play with explanations like, "that was early Dewey, this is middle Dewey." Surprisingly, Walk Hard is just as heartwarming as its serious cinematic counterparts. Cox is so gosh darn loveable, that when he experiences dramatic breakthroughs, a genuine buzz of inspiration might accompany the laughter these moments elicit. If, like the stage manager who searches for Dewey prior to his crowning performance, you leave a viewing of the movie screaming, "I need Cox!" then the filmmakers will have achieved their slapstick aims many times over. It wouldn't be surprising.

—Heidi Atwal
04.15.08

At first, Walk Hard might seem no more impressive than the latest installment from the Scary Movie/Date Movie/Epic Movie team. But as this parody of films like Ray and Walk the Line gains momentum, the presence of producer/writer Judd Apatow and his infamous flair for non-sequitur humor begin to shine. The movie nails all the predictable jokes about the musical phenom who succumbs to the deadly pleasures of rock & roll hedonism in pretty obvious terms (though in fairness, it really wouldn't be the same without our hero Dewey, played by the teddy-bear-looking John C. Reilly, pulling a sink out of the wall in a fit of rage every time his life falls apart). But within the first half-hour, the predictable jabs at the clichés of the rock-star biopic are joined by far more absurd, over-the-top antics, including but not limited to a fair amount of male nudity, which is almost always funny anyway. The ways that Walk Hard pokes fun at all the obligatory elements of the musical biopic also tend to get smarter and more clever as the film moves along. Dewey's brief period of performing as a highly political folk troubadour in the style of Bob Dylan (his particular cause being the plight of midgets) features a Dylanesque original song that's so spot-on, it could probably pass for Dylan on the radio if not for the only slightly too random, supposedly metaphorical lyrics ("...the skinny scanty sylph trashed the apothecary diplomat / inside the three-eyed monkey within inches of his toaster-oven life..."). This speaks to another of the film's strengths: the original music. All of the songs that Dewey sings over the course of his epic, 50-year career were written for the film (with the exception of a truly impressive disco cover of David Bowie's "Starman"), and every single one sounds like the real thing. Aside from the silly lyrics, the tunes each make fantastic, earnest examples of whatever musical style they were written to represent, complete with catchy hooks and toe-tapping rhythms (with the possible exception of Dewey's PCP-induced, fully orchestrated, tribal-instrument-heavy Brian Wilson-esque magnum opus, which we only ever hear a few bars from anyway). Another winning aspect of Walk Hard (depending on your perspective) is its self-awareness -- so enter at your own peril if you don't enjoy the Anchorman school of humor, because this is a parody that mocks itself. For example, when Dewey undertakes his mandatory period of studying transcendental meditation with the Beatles, the joke that the whole scene revolves around is the casting. The Fab Four are all played by familiar faces in the Apatow clique who just happen to have not shown up in the movie yet (and who look nothing like the actual men they're playing, especially Jack Black as Paul McCartney), so, of course, they spend the whole scene addressing each other with lines like "What do you think, George Harrison of the Beatles?" This comes shortly after a scene in which Dewey notes that times are turbulent and his wife (played by Jenna Fischer in her usual impossible combination of hotness and hilarity) replies, "Yes, the '60s are an important and exciting time!" It's not exactly high-brow fare, and it's really more of a tribute than a biting satire, but the movie does right by its premise as a goofball send-up to pull no punches on even the silliest joke. It may earn more chuckles than belly laughs, but it's altogether entertaining from beginning to end, even if you've never seen the source material. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide