Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

While there’s little doubt that Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story has been designed to act as an all-encompassing parody of music biopics, it’s just as clear that primary inspiration has been drawn from James Mangold’s recent Johnny Cash flick – as the movie possesses (and suffers from) the same sort of structure that ultimately caused Walk the Line‘s downfall. John C. Reilly stars as Dewey Cox, a talented singer whose rapid ascent to the top of the charts is inevitably followed by a booze-and-drugs spiral into oblivion. Director Jake Kasdan – working from his and Judd Apatow’s screenplay – has infused Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story with precisely the sort of lush visual sensibility that one has come to expect from such a film, and there’s no denying that Reilly’s expectedly flawless performance initially carries the proceedings through its sporadic lulls and distinct dearth of laughs. That being said, there does come a point at which it becomes increasingly difficult to overlook the familiarity and tediousness of the story – with the relentless emphasis on Cox’s downfall ensuring that the latter half of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is almost entirely devoid of elements designed to hold the viewer’s interest. Even some of the film’s seemingly can’t-miss attributes – including cameo appearances by Jack Black, Justin Long, Paul Rudd, and Jason Schwartzman as The Beatles – wind up going absolutely nowhere, and one’s ability to muster any real enthusiasm for the movie slowly-but-surely wanes as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story limps to its forgettable conclusion.

** out of ****