Review of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) by Alex M — 28 Nov 2010

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story I am proud to say is one of my top 3 favorite films of all time. It has more than what you would expect from a spoof, great performances, an Oscar worthy musical score, brilliantly miscast actors, and memorable characters. When I first saw the trailer for this movie on tv I thought that it looked like just another stupid unfunny parody of famous musicians but when I actually watched it I found out that it was so much more than that. There is not one unfunny moment or any flaws in this movie at all not one, every word of dialogue is either some sort of joke or a well thought out speech with jokes hidden inside it. It may sound like it gets redundant after a while especially when a lot of the jokes are dick jokes but it actually works wrather well thanks to the talented writing duo of Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan.

The songs are what really make the movie shine, the soundtrack is so good and clever that I have the whole album on my ipod and i'm listening to it right now as I write this. I've listened to every song so many times and now because of this my new favorite song in the world is Royal Jelly and I am devoting my entire life to being able to play it on guitar. Not all the songs try to be funny either most of them are actually quite romantic and inspirational like "A life without you is no life at all," and "Guilty as charged.".

John C. Reilly was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance as Dewey Cox, he didn't win sadly and neither did the music because any award show is bullshit. But what makes John's performance and everybody else's performance so fantastic is that everybody takes the movie so seriously and act like there in a real biopic on a country rock musicians instead of just a parody which just makes the movie even funnier. Without these sensational performances the movie wouldn't hold up the same way it would still be funny but it wouldn't have the same emotional grip that it already has.

I think that everyone knows already that this is basically a parody of Walk The Line except unlike Freidberg and Seltzer this movie doesn't just spoof the recent country singer biopic it also spoofs older ones like The Jazz Singer with the annoying nagging wife that wants the main character to give up his dream and live a boring life with her, and the racially insensitive jews.

I love this movie I think it's one of the best comedies ever made. It's not just 100% comedy however there actually is some drama and very touching moments found in it. At the very end when Dewey Cox sings Beautiful Ride my eyes start to water and for the first time in my life I actually start to feel sad after watching a spoof written by Judd Apatow the same guy who made The 40 Year Old Virgin. If you haven't seen this movie then what the hell are you waiting for. Watch it.