Heart of country

Crazy Heart
3.5 stars (out of five)
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall

The rock biopic path has been fairly well trodden by Hollywood producers in recent years. Joaquin Phoenix and Jamie Foxx both turned in career-defining performances as Johnny Cash and Ray Charles in ‘Walk the Line’ and ‘Ray’ respectively while comic film-maker of the moment Judd Apatow even jumped on board with ‘Walk Hard’, an hilarious parody which poked fun at the most clichéd aspects of the genre.

With such quality fare already on offer, one wonders whether the world actually needs another tale of redemption through music but the producers of ‘Crazy Heart’ (who just happen to include Jeff Bridges and Robert Duvall, both major characters in the movie) obviously thought so.

And it’s a good job they did.

‘Crazy Heart’ does run over much of the same ground previously covered by the likes of ‘Walk the Line’ and ‘Ray’ and fails to put a unique spin on the genre. But for the most part it’s a heart-warming yarn about a former great trying to regain both his place at the top of the musical ladder and control of his life.

The film is driven by an inspired performance from Bridges – as versatile an actor as has ever graced the big screen – and his portrayal of washed-up country singer-songwriter Bad Blake has already earned him some of the best reviews of a career that now spans five decades.

Bearing a striking resemblance to real-life crooner Kris Kristofferson and a gravelly singing voice that sounds like Kenny Rogers with laryngitis, Bridges appears in every scene and his performance stands out even more next to the underwhelming efforts of his co-stars.

Colin Farrell fails to convince as Tommy Sweet, country’s current golden boy who was mentored by Blake earlier in his career, while the usually magnificent Maggie Gyllenhaal puts in a rather flat showing as Blake’s love interest. Farrell’s failure is hardly surprising – it’s a stretch to pull off playing a cowboy boot-wearing southern man when you were born-and-raised in Dublin – but Gyllenhaal’s performance is disappointing, given the high quality of most of her output.

But it hardly matters anyway – the real star on show here is Bridges and the only thing that threatens to steal his limelight cannot even be seen on screen. A key aspect of any movie about music is the songs – if they are not up to scratch the film is likely to fall flat on its face – and ‘Crazy Heart’ delivers well on that score.

The man behind the music was T Bone Burnett, who also sorted out the tunes for ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou’ and ‘Walk the Line’, and he has come up with the goods once again here. Songs like ‘Hold On You’, ‘I Don’t Know’ and ‘Falling and Flying’ sound every-inch genuine country hits and the fact that they sound so good goes a long way to explaining how Blake came to be so revered in the first place.

By Daniel Markham 
29 January 2010.