Review of Crazy Heart (2009) by Forrest P — 20 Jan 2011

As with The Blind Side, which also came out in 2009, I saw this as a fairly decent film, but it lacks in producing many original thoughts and plot details. Unlike The Blind Side, however, I really enjoyed the lead performance and thought there were very well-defined characters to be found here.

Crazy Heart does not have a whole lot of new ideas. It features the familiar plot of a musician whose addiction to drugs (or alcohol, in this case) prevents him from having a clean life and hinders his success. It's a very old idea, but no idea has to fail if the effort put into it was good enough. Is there a good amount of effort into Crazy Heart to make it different from other films? Not necessarily. But Jeff Bridges's performances is one of the few things that really elevated the film for me.

I did start to feel like it was focusing more than necessary on alcoholism toward the latter third of the movie. It began to feel preachy as we see Bad Blake's (Bridges) alcoholism start to get the better of him. It drags here, it's preachy, it's not that interesting, and it puts a lot of pressure on the audience's investment in Bridges's character and performance to sell it. Which he does. Bridges manages to carry the film quite easily, in spite of its occasional repetition.

Of course, a great supporting cast that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall are what holds the film together at the end of the day. These actors are wonderful in adding a definite level of believability to the plot and allow the audience's view of Blake himself to be voiced.

Even with a great cast and very decent screenplay, though, there is still a huge "been there, seen that" feel to this movie. An audience would be just as well off seeing Walk the Line or Ray. They are better films that basically tell the same story. But Crazy Heart is not a bad movie. Just a little overly familiar and occasionally preachy.

6/10.