Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)December 20th, 2007
WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
If you've seen the trailers for WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY, you're probably already thinking, as I did, that it looks like it'll either be awful or hilarious. Well, I'm here to tell you that this over-the-top comedy, by writer and director Jake Kasdan (THE TV SET), is absolutely hilarious. The secret to its success is that it takes itself quite seriously. The characters all believe in the wonderfully good-spirited story, as if it isn't intentionally funny.
John C. Reilly, who sang so wonderfully well in CHICAGO, gives a perfect rendition of Dewey Cox, a singing legend whom I'm sure that you all remember well. Okay, so this biopic about a singer who appears to be an amalgamation of Johnny Cash, Elvis, Buddy Holly and many other great singers from the 1950s and 1960s is actually not a true story, but the actors don't appear to have gotten the memo, playing it with gusto.
"You have to give him a moment son," one of Dewey's men tells an impatient stage manager trying to rush Dewey onto the stage in his farewell performance. "Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays." Luckily, he shares this vision with us in one long extended flashback, which takes up almost the entire movie.
When we first meet Dewey, he is a six-year-old played then by Conner Rayburn. Young Dewey makes a mistake, as kids often do. In a playful fight with his brother Nate, Dewey accidentally cuts him in half with a machete. Since Nate was a piano playing prodigy and since Dewey hadn't yet shown any talent, Dewey's father (Raymond J. Barry) starts saying the refrain that he will repeat the rest of his life, "Wrong kid died!"
The upside of this tragic incident is that it provided the inspiration for Dewey's first song. Soon after killing Nate, Dewey picks up a guitar from a couple of blues playing black men and discovers he instantly knows how to play the guitar and sing the blues, starting with, "I done a bad thing. Cut my brother in half."
We then skip forward to 1953, when the fourteen-year-old Dewey is about to perform for his high school's talent show. Singing music that causes the town elders to be ready to lynch him -- "Satan's music" -- and the young girls in the audience to rip off their blouses, Dewey courageously belts out his melodies.
So, you may be wondering, who did they find to play Reilly's character at age fourteen? Why Reilly himself, of course, in a delicious piece of casting that pokes fun at all of the other movies in which actors play characters way too young. Reilly takes it very seriously, without a single wink-wink at the audience. He is fourteen, even if he looks about three decades older. And, to cap it off, thirty-four-year-old actress Kristen Wiig plays Edith, who claims to be Dewey's twelve-year-old girlfriend.
Later Edith, a veritable baby factory, becomes his first wife. Several years later, the two of them engage in a heated custody battle over their large brood. Dewey doesn't understand it since he thinks it's the woman's responsibility to take care of the offspring. He doesn't like it when she tries to force him to take their kids during the custody battle. Jenna Fischer ("The Office") is terrific as Dewey's girlfriend, who eventually becomes his second wife.
The film uses its R-rating well. The jokes are prime, as is the great physical comedy. Never have so many penises appeared in a musical intended for a wide audience.
The songs are as great as the story is cute and imaginative. There are also some great cameos, particularly that of Jack Black playing Paul McCartney.
The film comes with my strong recommendation, but also with a warning. If you go, stay through all of the credits. If you don't you'll hate yourself later, since it could make you rethink everything you just saw.
WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY runs 1:40. It is rated R for "sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, December 21, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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