Any day now, people are gonna start gunning for the fall of
writer/director/producer Judd Apatow, who—apparently—is
incapable of failure. Stacking up an overwhelming pile of great to
near-great movies (including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked
Up, Superbad, and Anchorman), Apatow has officially
set the new standard for screen comedy: smart, profane, and generally
pants-poop funny. And while his newest production, Walk Hard: The
Dewey Cox Story, may not reach the comedic heights of the
previously named works, it’s surprisingly successful for what is pretty
much a one-trick pony.
In a nutshell, Walk Hard is a parody of every ridiculously
overblown music biopic produced within the last 20 years. Whether it’s
La Bamba, Ray, or Walk the Line, Walk Hard hilariously skewers every cliché these screenplays trot out.
Perhaps most slyly, the film brings attention to how Hollywood
mythologizes musicians in a manner that’s almost rote: terrible
childhood, early stardom, divorce, drug habit, rocky new marriage, fall
from stardom, creative block, self-discovery, and finally, redemption.
(Oh, and then death. I always forget death.)
John C. Reilly is great in the role of Dewey Cox, a Kris
Kristofferson-ish figure who accidentally chops his brother in half
with a machete and spends the rest of his famous life trying to redeem
himself—in increasingly hilarious ways. SNL‘s Kristen Wiig
shines as his beleaguered first wife, and in a film populated by
musical giants (such as Elvis and Buddy Holly) perhaps my favorites
were Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Jason Schwartzman, and Justin Long as the
bickering, doltish Beatles (in my mind a pretty realistic
re-creation).
And while I had my doubts about what I knew was going to basically
be a one-joke premise, Walk Hard is pretty satisfying all the
way through—thanks largely to the talents of those involved, and
especially Apatow… the most unfuckwithable man in Hollywood.
