Film Review: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Cert. 15, 96 mins)
Stars: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Raymond J. Barry, Margo Martindale, Kristen Wiig, Chip Hormess, Conner Rayburn, Harold Ramis
Directed by Jake Kasdan

IT IS not always easy to laugh at a film comedy when you are the only person in the cinema, as I was for the Liverpool press show of this American satire.

But laugh I did often, and the rest of the time I wore a satisfied smile.

Frankly, I was not expecting to enjoy the film so much. Take that title – it sounds like one of those dreadful afternoon television biopics of some American character unknown in this country.

And it plays like one, too, with every hard-luck life story cliché played out on screen.

What lifts it above this is the music.

Dewey Cox, it must be stated immediately, is a fictional character, one whose musical career takes him through every musical genre from 1950s ballads to country, soul, punk and rock.

In this way, it is more akin to cinema films like the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line and the Ray Charles film Ray. But there is a lot more besides.

John C Reilly (so good singing Mr Cellophane in the film musical Chicago) is perfect as Dewey Cox, a singer whose story begins in the Deep South, brought up on a farm by tough Pa (the scrawny Raymond J Barry) and warm-hearted, comfortably-proportioned Ma (Margo Martindale).

Following the Ray Charles story in which Ray was blamed for allowing his brother to drown, Dewey manages to slice his musically talented brother in half when the two are playing with machetes (“A particularly bad case of somebody being cut in half”, opines the doctor while Pa demands he “speak English” as he is not a scientist).

Later, Dewey runs into a black blues player, picks up a guitar and immediately starts playing and singing brilliant blues.

But when he plays it at school, he is criticised for playing “the Devil’s music”. Forced to leave home, he nips into the Planet recording studio (shades of Presley’s Sun Studio here) and when he plays his song, Walk Hard, passers-by crowd the front of the shop.

Within minutes (literally!) it is being played on the radio and Dewey is a big success.

Later, he is sweeping up in a club when a soul singer loses his voice. Dewey goes on in his place and is discovered by Jewish record producers attired in full ringlets, beards and hats.

The club for black patrons is a hoot, by the way.

People go there for dirty dancing and they take that seriously, more or less miming copulation on the dance floor.

Dewey later marries – his wife produces kids by the bucketload – but it is not a happy marriage. His wife wants him home, not following a singing career.

As he moves through the decades, he tries out a number of drugs, always walking into the band room where his black drummer is taking a different one, advising him: “This is not for you”.

He tries them anyway.

His old Pa (who never ages) pops up regularly to tell him, “The wrong brother died!” and Dewey has a roller-coaster ride of life and career.

He even meets The Beatles in their hippy phase, an hilarious scene with an uncredited Jack Black doing a John Lennon and Jason Schwarztman a pouting Ringo, both with unbelievably bad Liverpool accents.

By the end of the movie, Dewey is an old man, still being offered drugs (this time Viagra) and ready to go back on stage to perform and collect a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The film music by Michael Andrews is smart and Reilly has a wonderful time in the Dewey role. His fictional life is really the story of 20th-century pop told with a broad grin and a large dollop of satire. Great fun.

philkey