Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

I've watched this movie around 50 times. Literally one of the funniest movies ever made. It would be great if it was a movie that kids could enjoy as well, but that is my only complaint. 100% adult themes and shows way too much for a responsible parent to allow children to watch.

When I was a kid we had Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Porky's. This is a hilarious movie, and I suggest watching it repeatedly since there will be a lot of things you will catch and fall over laughing at if you understand the movie at all. John C Reilly comes into a class A acting role with this one. And deserves it.

Great music as well as amazing acting. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. Love it.

And if there is a musical genre out there short of orchestral symphony, it gets sent up by this wonderful comedy.

Not a movie for the kiddies by a long shot, but if you are familiar with music artists from the 50s on, and especially if you lived through those periods of time, the parody of styles and stars will leave you with sore sides from laughing.

Make sure to listen closely to every lyric. They don't miss a chance to make jokes subtle or broad, and they don't take it easy on anyone.

Songs in the credits are just as funny as songs through the body of the movie, so make sure to wait around for those rather than switching off after the story itself fades to black.

A personal favorite of mine are the scenes where Dewey discovers new drugs. Although I've never taken drugs, even smoked marijuana, these scenes were just too funny to be offensive, especially the first discussion of the weed just named.

Be in the mood to watch a comedy, especially for a parody of this type. If you can't really pay attention, you won't get everything, and will just think the movie crude. Also, if you're really stuck up about what's in your comedy, then you may not like this movie.

If you're up for it, you'll die laughing.

Absolutely hilarious film. It might be the best parody-music biopic ever made, with amazing talent, excellent music and great, funny lines. Rewatch-ability is high. There are so many jokes in there and so much good music and acting, which make me wonder how come this film was not more popular back then. John C Reily is a multitalented actor and a great comedian overall and carries this film right from the start. I guess that some folks didn't like the walk-the-line Johnny Cash film parody moments and that maybe got the film some negative comments. Reily however does a great deal of respect to the artist and furthermore he sings on each track with his own amazing voice. Impressive, heartful and hilarious! Walk Hard. 10/10.

I thought this was a brilliant satire of the biopic genre. It was obviously borrowed from Walk the Line, but there was plenty of other stuff thrown in as well. It was a truly hilarious movie, including the scenes where the band members convince him to try the drugs, a scene with the Beatles, the variety show stuff and interviews, all the scenes with the title character smashing the sinks, and the Walk the Line spoofs. It was very well written with lots of great dialog. You will love all the cameos and other stuff. I guarantee it. This was a tailor-made role for John C. Reilly, who is perfect in and for the part, as is just about everyone in it.

*** 1/2 out of ****

"Walk Hard" is a clever parody of the life of a rock-star, and bio-pics such as "Walk the line", "Ray" and "La Bamba". It follows the formula nearly perfectly, and follows fake rock-star legend Dewey Cox (and yes, they do have plenty of puns with his name, but this is to be expected) through his life in the 50's, 60's, 70's and into today.

The surprise of "Walk Hard" is that although it was written by the guys who made "Superbad" and "Knocked Up", and has the "formula spoof" similar to "Scary Movie" and "Epic Movie", this film manages to be quite intelligent, and manages to avoid overly gross out humor. While it has its share of gross out and slapstick gags, it isn't completely idiotic, while movies such as "Epic Movie" or "Talladega Nights" tend to be totally moronic and disgusting. The humor here is very observational, self-parodying, ironic, surreal, dark and often hysterical.

The reason why "Walk Hard" works well is because of its somewhat wicked sense of humor. It manages to ironically "overdue" the jokes to the point that you can see the actual funny part is that it is being overdone and over-the-top. It self implies that something is going to go bad, and makes the audience clearly see what path the scene is heading towards, which is also another part of its sense of humor.

The performances are very good as well. John Reilly plays Dewey very well, and his naive but good natured persona often plays out hysterically in contrast to a society often attempting to harm him. His character does lack some substance and emotional depth, though this is to be expected in the humorous nature of the film, and is the writing, not the acting. He plays the role from ages 14 to 71, and the goofy age difference between Reilly and how old of a character he is playing is another one of the film's ironic self-aware quirky jokes, in which he constantly reminds us of his age throughout the film so we can see this, as well as the purposely awkward looking make-up.

Jenna Fischer is great as his love interest and duet partner, a parody of Reese Witherspoon in "Walk the Line", who falls on and off for Dewey throughout the movie based on his life decisions, another movie formula cliché. Tim Meadows is hysterical as Cox' drug-addict drummer and long time friend, with all of his lines being in a tongue-in-cheek and smart-ass manner, and a hysterical repetition of scenes where he introduces Cox to drugs.

All in all, the only problem with this movie is that it is quite uneven. The movie seems to spend a large time dealing with Dewey's life in the 50's, not spending much time in the 60's, 70's or 90's, and spending no time in the 80's. It jumps into his problem a bit fast and doesn't go into depth into some areas of his life as much as others.

However, despite being somewhat uneven, "Walk Hard" remains a very entertaining, very funny, and witty movie. It is quite tragic that this opening weekend went up against the liking of nearly 4 very popular movies, resulting in a box office failure of this film. Hopefully next week, or in the future to come, this gem of a comedy (A rare thing in 2007), can be seen and gain a reputation among others.