Review of Walk the Line (2005) by Brandon W — 05 Nov 2010

Why everyone hopped on this movies dick I'll never understand, especially supposed "Cash" Fans. It presents a flat, cliche, unfair and very Hollywood version of the great man's life and while Joaquin and Reese and pretty much everyone give pretty damn good performances they don't at all capture the essence of the country and rock and roll legends they're trying to portray, not even Shooter Jennings which I find to be really odd. The other thing that bothers me is much like Ray, the film seems to be trying way to hard too capitalize on the inevitable resurgence of the artist in the wake of his death which I find to be pretty disgusting. The movie is not particularly well put together, and is far too cheesy and overly sympathetic of the main characters to be considered an accurate biopic so after viewing it you're pretty much left wondering what exactly all the fuss was about. Still it's a compelling film, it's not torturously bad, is actually pretty watchable and it could always be worse, it could be depicting a bad country artist, that would have put the nail in the coffin for me.

The movie is supposed to be a biopic of the "Man in Black" country legend Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix, who gives a decent if melodramatic performance but does not exemplify Cash as everyone claims) from early days on a farm in Mississippi to stardom and his relationship with fellow artist June Carter Cash (Reese Witherspoon, again good but not really great performance and she sounds and looks nothing like June) despite being married and having a child which is something this movie glosses over a bit too much for me. Predictably he gets caught up in the lifestyle and ends up ruining his life strung out in jail addicted to Heroin and such but finds redemption through music, Christ and his love for June or something and in the meantime it tries to unsuccessfully convince us, that "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Ring of Fire" were a piece of his soul he worked into music slowly but surely since his boyhood days which is about where the movie loses credibility as an accurate depiction of his life. I'd be remiss to say that in its own right it's not an emotionally gripping film though from young Cash's pitiful mourning for his lost brother in the film's beginning to final sense of triumph and well-being but it doesn't save it from the depths of mediocrity.

As I said I didn't hate this movie, I dare say I rather enjoyed it. I liked seeing it fit all my favorite Cash songs into the film my favorite being a rendition of "I Got Stripes" on his television show when he passes out from drugs or alcohol or something. It doesn't matter in this regard the movie acts as a propaganda piece of "Just Say No." I enjoyed seeing its portrayal of other famous artists of the time if fleetingly, including Elvis Presley himself, Jerry Lee Lewis the only one of the group still living, and Waylon Jennings played ineptly by his son Shooter. But as much as I liked this part it was rather fleeting as the movie was hell bent on focusing on Johnny and June's relationship as if it were the only thing in his life. By my snipes its clear I had some serious problems with this film as well, it didn't have an original bone in its body, and had at best cliche and overrated performances none of which would be such a big deal were it not for the fact as started this review off with everyone inexplicably hopped on this movie's dick, imagine The Doors movie by Oliver Stone if everyone loved it and called it the greatest biopic ever, how obnoxious would it suddenly become? About as obnoxious as this I'd imagine.

But I'd be remiss to say this movie is not a success as it certainly pulled one over on the American movie going public. It used every cliche, sappy, Hollywood this man's life trick in the bag and proved audiences would still eat that shit up like a pig starving for a bull shit, inaccurate biopic capitalizing on the death of its brilliant subject matter that I'm sure you didn't care about it while alive. But while it's a success don't get me wrong it's a terrible, mediocre movie and if you have much sense you'll avoid it and not waste your time on it unless you're some kind of Johnny Cash fanatic desiring to see his image used to sell a really bad cheesy script.