Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

It's a shame Judd Apatow had to close 2007 on this rather sour note. Walk Hard reunited Apatow with director/writer Jake Kasdan (The TV Set). Unfortunately after a string of amazing hits this year (Knocked Up, Superbad) and some of the funniest movies over the past several years (40 Year Old Virgin, Ron Burgundy) Walk Hard is just an uninspired parody piece worthy of the "(Insert Genre) Movie" series.

Walk Hard is essentially a straight up parody of the musical biopic. It lampoons everything from Ray to the Doors. Mostly, however, it takes on Walk the Line- the Johnny Cash movie. John C. Reilly stars as Dewey Cox, a country musician who dabbles in about every musical genre while fighting the demons from his childhood. It closely parallels the actual Johnny Cash story, having Cox wrestle with infidelity, drugs, and a disapproving family. The movie may have been better if it hadn't taken the easy route of obvious parody.

The cast is exemplary. Reilly has a long resume of supporting roles, but it felt like he was just trying to channel Will Ferrel this time. Jenna Fisher stars as Darlene (the June Carter character). She hasn't made the best choices in movie roles (Slither, The Brothers Solomon, Blades of Glory) but she can really do no wrong in my eyes. The rest of the cast includes Tim Meadows and Chris Parnell as his band mates, Harold Ramis as a Jewish producer, Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly, Jack White as Elvis, and Jason Schwartzman, Paul Rudd, Justin Long, and Jack Black as the Beatles. It even includes cameos by Eddie Vedder, Jewel, Lye Lovett, Jackson Browne, and the Temptations. Wow, that is lot of big names in this movie. Somehow it just doesn't add up the sum of its parts. Not even close.

Some parts of the movie were indeed funny. The scene with the Beatles was incredibly funny, complete with Yellow Submarine inspired acid trip. And the scenes with Elvis and Buddy Holly were also very entertaining. Unfortunately for every one of these genuinely funny moments, there were far to many that fell flat. Walk Hard being sampled by a rapper named Lil' Nutzzak? That's right, they wanted to package Cox and Lil' Nutzzak together. Far too many jokes based on his name.

The music was actually really good. Much like Spinal Tap created some truly catchy songs, Walk Hard definitely deserves the best original song nomination it's getting for the Golden Globes. This is a soundtrack I would even consider getting, as it provides a little taste of parody in all kinds of musical styles. Unfortunately, none of this makes the movie live up any where close to Apatow's other movies. He should stick with his original comedies and leave the parody to Jason Friedberg, who's probably working on Scary Movie 5, or Epic Move 2 by this point. Fortunately another string of promising movies by Apatow awaits in 2008.

1.5/5