Review by All Movie Guide
At first, Walk Hard might seem like nothing more than the latest installment from the folks who brought you
Scary Movie, Teen Movie, and
Date Movie. But as the parody of films like
Ray and
Walk the Line gains momentum, the presence of producer/writer
Judd Apatow and his infamous flair for random, non-sequitur humor begins to shine. The movie nails all the predictable jokes about the musical phenom who succumbs to the deadly pleasures of rock and 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 way that
Walk Hard pokes fun at all the obligatory elements of the musical biopic also tend to get smarter and cleverer as the film moves along. Dewey's brief period of performing as a highly political folk troubadour in the style of
Bob Dylan in order to fight for the rights of midgets features a Dylan-esque 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, fifty 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). The movie also wins you over by way of being hilariously self-aware. When Dewey has his mandatory period of studying transcendental meditation with the Beatles, the fab four are unabashedly played by popular comedic actors who look nothing at all like the real men (especially
Jack Black as
Paul McCartney) so they constantly remind us who they're supposed to be by prefacing sentences with phrases like "We, the Beatles. . ..from Liverpool. . ." This comes shortly after a scene in which Dewey notes to his wife that times are turbulent and she replies "Yes, the sixties 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 funny, especially if you're familiar with the source material. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide