5/5 A Showcase For Reilly, And Screamingly Funny To Boot!
  by Scot Carr (Massachusetts USA)
Ya'd figure that classic zany comedy was dead. Sure, there have been ambitious stuff, but more often than not, a lot of today's "comedy" movies are either blatent "gross-out" fests written for 12-year-olds, or the tired "let's-make-a-satire-of-the-current-favorite-genre" formula. Truthfully, the last great American comedy for me was "There's Something About Mary." Sure, it was a stupid-humor film, but it had genuine laugh-out-loud surprises and, more importantly, heart. Basically, it was a sweet romantic comedy with slapstick thrown in for good measure.

Judd Apatow, whether he's directing or producing, seems to be the guy who'll revive well-done dumb-guy humor. All by himself, judging by the list of hits he's thrown out. "Walk Hard," unfortunately, was the least commercially success ful of them, and for what reason I don't know. He did satire right, focussing on one character through a much-travelled formula, created a believable (and funny) body of work for the fictionally tributed, got a great director in Jake Kasden, and casted extremely well by putting veteran John C. Reilly in the lead.

This would be the most important thing, as few realize how talented and multifacited Mr. Reilly really is. Sincerity in character? He makes poor Dewey a sweetly believable guy who'd be really entertaining in any story he was plunked in. Creative? John C. can keep up with the rest of the brilliantly funny folks in the film. Most importantly, can he sing? Hell yeah! Reilly toured through Boston a few years back in a musical stage adaptation of the Ernest Borgnine everyman love story, "Marty," and carried a hell of a tune (even before "Chicago"), showing he has the singing chops. In a more sane universe, Reilly would be headlining more major films, rather than being relegated to "character actor" or "second banana" status.

As mentioned before, this is satire done right - built around a well-rounded comedy character, rather than a series of sight gags (although the film has those aplenty). Kasden and Apatow took every cliche about the recent musical biopic craze and ran them through the Dewey Cox prism. What made it even more funny was the character and their viewpoints. It looked like every biopic out there, and made most fun about that.

"Walk Hard" deserved more box-office love, but it will be a long-lived successful film because of home video. There are worse fates than that.

4/5 Walk the Funny Line
  by Rocky Raccoon (Boise, ID)
(3.5 *'s) Judd Apatow's `Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' is a familiar project. As the producer of `The Forty Old Virgin, 'Knocked Up,' and 'Superbad,' he takes another irreverent comedy, this time a parody of music biopics of popular music icons. Sometimes savvy, sometimes obvious, the movie is mostly an effective and witty trip through pop music history.

One of the best decisions was to cast John C. Reilly in the title role. Watching the film, I kept thinking Will Ferrell could have been cast as Dewey Cox. As much as I like Ferrell, his overexposure to such familiar loopiness may have made the movie overwrought. With Reilly's fine performance as "Lefty" in 'A Prairie Home Companion,' they made the right choice. There's a certain restraint he brings to the role that's welcome and refreshing.

For those who have seen `Ray,' and, especially `Walk the Line' the referenced parody will be clear, but those who haven't undoubtedly will be in for a fun time, too. It's basically a rags to riches story about a man from the South who gets a recording contract much the way Elvis and Johnny Cash did.

On the down side, tragedy is given a lighter treatment. Anyone who's read Cash's autobiography or seen 'Walk the Line' will recognize when Dewey accidentally cuts his brother in half that it's a reference to Cash's brother who lost his life to an electric saw. Throughout the movie he's haunted that he was the "wrong one" to die. They don't exactly glamorize drug use, though, which shows Dewey always making the wrong informed choice. (Backstage he's tempted by a band mate who says, "You don't want to use this stuff." Dewey always asks, "What does it do?" "It takes away every negative thought..." as if he chides.)

The real pluses come as Dewey goes through his phases of music. He has his early rockabilly years. He rocks during the early sixties, gets cosmic and hippie later, and becomes the familiar casualty of substance abuse and ego (with the usual infidelities) in his life. Some of the best scenes include his meeting with the squabbling Fab Four and an interview where he tries to reach the mainstream with a comeback family TV show. Fumbling with questions, Dewey reveals that he's off PCP and his estranged children will be watching his program. Some family man.

While not a comedy classic, `Walk Hard...' is more often unpredictable than not with a witty script that is delivered with a brisk comedic pace. It had me laughing loud and often, and I'll bet you will, too.

4/5 Funny tribute shows love of music, and the talents of John C. Reily
  by Poor Napoleon (TX United States)
While Walk Hard was something of a commercial failure, the film was proof that Judd Apatow and co. can do no wrong. Like Apatow's previous productions, it mixes raunchy humor with a bit of sentiment. That the film does this while spoofing the music biopic genre is a feat unto itself. The film comes alive through the performance of John C. Reily. Let's get this out of the way: someone take notice and give this guy an award - he is talented.

The film is more or less a parody of Walk the Line and Ray, both garnered with Oscar Nods and awards. To parody honest work filled with a lot of sadness seems at first seems like it might be in bad taste. But rest assured, this is a tribute to those musicians.

The movie is filled with some zany moments, including Dewey's initial discovering of the blues, his brother getting cut in half, and a ridiculous confrontation with his father. The film makes intentional references to music biopics with the cheating, drugs and the so called "dark period" of so many musicians. These moments are funny and acted well, but what really drives the film is the music.

The approach to the music seems mostly inspired by Johnny Cash. But the filmakers don't stop there. There's Bob Dylan, disco, and even rap. The songs are really good, moving the story along while often being quite humorous. To me, the most humorous has to be "Let's Duet." They're all top notch and John C. Reily gives his all. While Daniel Day Lewis picked up an oscar for his work in 2007, maybe someone should give Reily an award for his hard work in this film. I've loved seeing Reily in many of his supporting roles and admired his work. He shines here.

This 2 disc DVD, like prevoius Apatow productions, is chock full of goodies. The main draw to fans of the film will be the inclusion of 16 (count 'em) full performances of music from the movie. There's the obligatory commentary and a very interesting documentary on the music production. There's a lot of hard work that went into this film and I hope it gets a bit more notice on video.

5/5 For the dreamers out there who also like to laugh
  by Ken Jensen (Kingston, NY)
I have never before been inspired by a satirical, fictional comedy. (Is that half redundant?) But by the end of Walk Hard, I felt fantastic! That was the unexpected curve. The comedy though, is what I was after and I got it by the fistfuls! Sight gags, the absurd, live action caricatures of famous people, plenty of drug humor, etc. There were aspects of Steve Martin being channeled by John C. Reilly. And, I feel you can't really go wrong with John. He's not Academy Award material, he's just a perfect character actor. I enjoyed immensely his will to succeed coupled with his faulty decision-making processes. He was an idiot, but an intensely focused idiot. They basically made fun of every "unknown boy from nowhere makes it big" movie that came before it. And they did it well. The beginning had me wondering if the level of comedy was going to be elemntary school or not. And maybe it was. Who cares? It got funnier to me the longer I watched. And it even had a moral to it.

5/5 A really funny film
  by Phyllis Kurland
This film is funny beginning to end. Jack Reilly is terrific as Dewey Cox. The music is excellent, and much of it was written by the great songwriter Dan Bern. The drug and nude scenes are funny but not what you would want to see with kids. I laughed the whole time--it's a very entertaining film.