Take Me Home: The John Denver Story

My father was John Denver's photographer, and spent over 20 years travelling around the world with him. When he saw this, he called everyone he knew and was saying, "hey, did you see 'The Hal Thau Story'?" He then must have told me about 20-something anachronisms that occured in this film. I cracked up myself at the total lameness of John Denver's character talking in a voice that didn't even sound like him, and then lip-synching to crappy old recordings. It could have been good, but the director obviously had no idea who John Denver was as a person.

Chad Lowe is simply awful. The lip synching he does for the songs is almost funny. He has never been a very effective actor but this performance wouldn't even get noticed in a high school competition. One has to wonder how he got this gig.

The other actors and actresses in the movie do a good job but no one stands out. The worst part about Chad Lowe's performance is that it is so bad that it overshadows the effort of every other performer.

The story of John Denver is a compelling and interesting one. Unfortunately, this movie does almost nothing to capitalize on it. Chad Lowe seems like he is lampooning John Denver on Saturday Night Live. It would be funny if he weren't trying to be serious.

While this account, from a creative standpoint, could have done more justice to John Denver, the events and places as they transpired provided a fairly true-to-life story of John's legacy. Chad Lowe was seemingly unfit to play the part of John Denver, as the mannerisms and lip-sync attempts were modest at best. The shining star of the production was Kristin Davis as Annie Denver. My biggest regret is that the sequences were filmed in Canada and not in John's hometown (and mine) of Aspen, Colorado. Additionally, two hours is not nearly enough time to chronicle the beautiful life of this artist.

In a word, shallow.

Or how about, "a really good idea with a lot of potential"? Knowing what I do about John Denver's life I would have much rather seen a PBS documentary on him than this program - after which I wondered how much of what I had seen was real or just artistic license.

The elements were there, I suppose, but they weren't very fully developed. And since I like Denver's music I wanted to watch the show, but if I wasn't a fan I don't think there would have been much in there to keep me watching.

Perhaps a mini-series would have given the needed time to develop some elements a bit more. Or maybe it would have been just as shallow, but longer; I don't know.

Maybe I just ought to read his book instead.

I enjoyed this movie, but once again, history and chronology were ignored. Example - if you believe this movie, the song Calypso came out after the movie 'Oh God!' Actually, Calypso was a hit in the fall of 1975, 'Oh God!' was released in 1977. If you believe this movie, Annie's Song, a top ten hit from 1974 came out post 1976.

The movie also skips from 1972 straight to 1976 which omits John Denver 's peak years as a performer and hit maker.

Why don't these TV Movie makers do any real research? Because they need to get the movie out first, accuracy is secondary.

Unfortunately, TV movies are now no different than tabloid magazines.

Worth watching but don't rely on it for chronological accuracy