Walkin' Hard, or Hardly Walkin'?

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

Director- Jake Kasdan

Starring- John C. Reilly, Tim Meadows, Jenna Fischer

This Biopic spoof takes a look at the life of Dewey Cox (Reilly), a man who lives in the monstrous shadow of his older brother whom he had accidentally killed in boyhood by slicing him in half with a machete. As pennance, Cox realized he must become "double-great" to redeem himself. His father, throughout the movie finds every opportunity to mutter "the wrong son died!" and doesn't forgive him until he accidentally cuts himself in half.

In the meantime, Dewey Cox realizes he has a gift for music that people respond to. Despite his wife's disapproval, he pursues his musical career and becomes one of the biggest, and in some cases most infamous name in music. Along with the fame, however, comes all the weirdness and dark spots: monkey-owning, drug-taking, sex-with-strangers-having, wife-cheating, etc. He also meets the love of his life in Darlene Madison (Fischer), and gets married to her, "forgetting" about his first marriage. After getting hooked on LSD, Cox attempts to write his "opus", and practically invites members of every culture in to help, create a giant saturated mess of a song that no one knows the meaning of. It gets so out of hand, that his own band members--who were not given parts to play in this mega-song, quit the band.

Cox loses the love of his life, quits music, makes peace with his dad, and reconnects with his many sons and daughters. Life becomes peaceful for him, and when Darlene walks back into his life it's almost complete. Soon after, he is beckoned back onto the stage after being gone 25 years by his legions of fans, old and new. He writes one last great song called "Beautiful Ride", an equal to his first great "Walk Hard", and according to a postscript dies three minutes after performing it with his old band on stage.

This movie was funny on a lot of levels, though it tried too hard a couple times. The Cox jokes and the sexually suggestive duet between him and Darlene are juvenile but clever nonetheless, and hey- I still laughed. Every time he comes into contact with a music legend, he makes sure to say their full name, just in case we don't recognize them, I guess. It got old, but how else would we have known Frankie Munez was playing Buddy Holly (I did appreciate the humor in that one, though--especially contrasted with John C. Reilly playing a 14 version of Dewey and looking like a full grown adult) Jack White as Elvis was pretty awesome, too.

The music was well-written, probably with help from SNL cast members, and there was even a touch here and there of sadness. "(Have You Heard the News) Dewey Cox Died" was actually kind of haunting.

Rating: 4/5 Bonedaddies.