As played (beautifully) by John C. Reilly, Dewey Cox is equal parts Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Donovan, and more ... and none of the above. Walk Hard, the often note-perfect parody of music biopics, manages to find the right tone throughout thanks to a good script and even better cast.Dewey Cox is a lad on a hardscrabble Southern farm who accidentally cuts his brother in half while playing with machetes one day (this after a hilarious sequence of increasingly dangerous playtime activities). His father never forgives him, but his mother encourages his musical development, and right-place-at-the-right-time Dewey gets his chance in an all-black club ("Remember, our customers come here to dance erotically!" the club's owner reminds his mop-boy made good.) He makes good, and builds on that debut.
Along Dewey's rise to the top, no stone gets left unturned in terms of those badly telegraphed moments that music biopics are famous for. To wit:
But it is a Judd Apatow production, so crude moments abound, as well. If you can look past those (sort of the way Dewey has to, er, look past what's staring him in the face in the inevitable hotel orgy scenes), you'll find some spot-on riffs on everything from Walk the Line to Don't Look Back. And, perhaps in spite of yourself, you'll find yourself laughing very hard en route.
Fans of The Office, 30 Rock, and other current sitcom habitats of sketch comedy veterans will delight at the cameos. I particularly enjoyed seeing Matt Besser, alumnus of the brilliant sketch troupe Upright Citizens Brigade, as Dewey's lead guitarist.
A kitchen-sink pastiche of wonderfully executed jokes that misses few opportunities to tweak its inspirations, Walk Hard succeeds far more often than it has any right to. In the mood for some not-quite-clean parody of a much-needed target? So long as you can tolerate some obvious sexual double-entendres and some very awkward (played to the, er, hilt for laughs) full frontal male nudity, Dewey Cox will tickle your funny bone.
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