Walk Hard Movie Review

In Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the whole Apatow crew returns in the satirical story of a musician and his up-and-down, roller coaster ride of a life. John C. Reilly stars, and Jake Kasdan (of Orange County fame) directs, as well as pens the script along with Judd Apatow. In the vein of movies like Walk The Line and Ray, Walk Hard takes shots at the era and its musicians, as well as the movie genre itself, and pulls no punches when it comes to its satire.

This Apatow film is much different than his first 3 hit comedies. It's a satire of all the music biopics, so it takes potshots at existing material instead of creating its own, which has been the real reason behind the success of his previous movies. However, just because this movie was different doesn't mean it wasn't funny.

This wasn't just your average satire. This seemed to take its source material, Walk The Line say, and use it as an outline for the movie. When it came to the humor though, it wasn't all that stupid Scary Movie type satirical garbage that they keep churning out, it was more intelligent and clever humor, using devices that you find in Apatow's other movies. Now, one of the things I really value about the other movies of his is the honesty and genuineness in the humor, and while this has some of that, a lot of it is inspired by other things, so those qualities aren't really there. Don't get me wrong though, it definitely still has some big laughs.

This was a satire of musical biopics, but one of the things that really surprised me was how good the music actually was. I really didn't expect the music to play such a large part in the movie, just like driving really wasn't a big part of Talladega Nights, but it was good. Plus, if being good wasn't enough, it actually drove the plot and moved the story along. That's a difficult task for some biopics in the first place, let alone a satire, so that was impressive.

Aside from the music, the humor was solid. VERY crude, even more so than Knocked Up and Superbad, but well done and funny. It was mostly low-brow stuff, but there were some great moments. I can distinctly remember 2 of Tim Meadows' lines in this film that were repeated over and over throughout and got funnier each time ("You never paid for drugs. Not once!"). Very good comedic repetition, which is one of those devices I mentioned earlier that just lets you know that these guys know how to do comedy. The movie also took shots at the 60's and its artists, such as Bob Dylan and The Beatles. I actually really enjoyed the part with The Beatles, it was clever.

Now, Apatow has quite the hot hand in the comedy industry, churning out hit after hit, and doing it all with essentially the same group of actors. But it was funny in this movie, because even though these guys are in every other Apatow movie, when they came on screen, it seemed like they were doing a cameo. Just weird how attached they are with his movie and still can seem like guest stars. I just thought that was interesting.

There were a few things I didn't like about it. First, while I understand that it was a satire, it still seemed a little rushed spanning 7 decades. I know that was kind of the point, but here's my rationale. All Judd Apatow's previous movies have been very successful due to, in my opinion, the honesty in the comedy. He makes comedies, yes, but he makes them with heart and character, so they aren't just comedies, they're good movies as well. So the traditional "filler" that you would find in other satires that generally sucks is replaced here with quality. That's why, at the end of this movie, it actually gets sympathetic and sentimental. Therefore, when you're going through 7 decades of this movie, and the filler is good stuff, it feels a bit rushed. Hope that makes sense. The second thing I wasn't sure of was John C. Reilly himself. I'm not convinced that he's a lead actor. He was good in this movie, but I don't think he's the kind of actor that, by himself, without good writing, could carry a movie. Just my opinion.

There is a lot of good stuff in this movie, and a bunch of laughs. Judd Apatow and crew has proven they know how to do comedy, and this is proof they can branch out into other styles and have the same success. It was definitely different than his previous movies, not quite the classics as the others, so don't expect the same things, but it did what it set out to do, and did it well. I was totally sucked in, laughed the whole way, and had a very good time watching this movie.

On the Reganometer, I give Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story an 8 out of 10.