Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story 0
If you didn’t already think music biopics were stupid, you will now.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: music biopics nearly always seem to me like nothing more than masturbatory, kiss ass fluff designed to misinform the general public into believing that they are suddenly experts on the life and work of artists they had never had any real knowledge of beforehand. So much time is wasted showering undeserved accolades on these films and playing the songs on the radio, etc., that no one ever gets a word in edgewise to say, “Hey, these movies are total shit”, which they are.
Finally, someone has stood up and said aloud for all to hear what many of us have been thinking for years now, but didn’t quite know how to express, either verbally or cinematically. For those of you eagerly expecting a rehash of the retarded “Epic/Scary/Date Movie” formula, you should probably be sterilized to keep you from passing your mongoloid genes onto future generations, for starters. But also you will find that “Walk Hard” is so much more than that.
Teen pop sensation, Dewey Cox! And some other guys too.
Although Walk Hard is taking aim at the music biopic genre as a whole, it’s main target is “Walk the Line”, one of the worst offenders in lazy and obvious filmmaking in recent memory. If you mercifully avoided being subjected to this film, it may diminish your satisfaction in seeing it be ripped to shreds somewhat, but it shouldn’t ruin the experience for you completely. The thing that separates Walk Hard from most “spoof” films is that it follows the same formula as Walk the Line and movies like it almost exactly, often letting the humor come from pointing out the obviously stupid elements so blatantly that one cannot help but laugh at how corny the whole thing really is.
To further illustrate this thesis statement, I will outline some of the ways in which music biopics are cheap and sappy and which are touched upon in the story of Dewey Cox:
1. Every musicians life begins with tragedy
While it’s true that musicians tend to be cut from a different cloth than the mainstream citizenry, that doesn’t necessarily always stem from a horrible childhood tragedy/illness/accident, although that’s what most film historians would have you believe. If no childhood trauma has occurred, filmmakers will generally invent or exaggerate one to the point of sheer irrationality.
2. The trauma in question will stay with the artist throughout their entire life, inspiring their every move and eventually being resolved in the final years of their life/career.
Of course it would be impossible to believe that one might be talented and driven simply for the sake of being talented and driven, and of course no new traumas can occur in one’s lifetime that are not directly a result of and/or response to the original trauma. No one will ever understand the obvious root of the artist’s (highly exaggerated) bad behavior, both voluntary and involuntary, no matter what.
This love interest will have such a strong bond with the artist that one might wonder how it is that they never communicate effectively enough to discover any personal information about the artist’s motivations for the way they live their life, ever. You will be expected to ignore this fact and cry every time this love interest leaves/comes back under meaningful circumstances.
4. Every time the artist has some sort of personal epiphany, the epiphany in question will become the title of a song, which they will then play immediately.
This will happen at least five times in every movie, at the beginning and end of the hero’s journey, in the central climax, and twice in-between as a false climax.
5. The artist will meet other famous people at times, who will not hesitate to repeat their names many times in case you couldn’t already recognize them by their ridiculous costume.
Example: If the other famous person is a young Michael Jackson, he will be dressed in the same outfit he wears in the “Thriller” video and will introduce himself thusly: “Hello, (insert artist’s name here), I am Michael Jackson, and I am here with my sister, Janet. Janet Jackson. I, Michael Jackson, am famous for singing and dancing on my album, “Thriller”. It’s a pleasure for me, Michael Jackson, to meet you, (insert artist’s name here)”.
Dewey Cox in his requisite drug phase, juking pigs whilst high on PCP.
6. The artist will have a group of supporters that love them no matter what.
This group may be either A. their band, B. their management team that has “always believed in them” c. their family or D. any combination of the above. Either way, this support group will leave the artist in their darkest hour, causing them to face their demons alone, rip sinks out of walls and go on a voyage of personal discovery. Once this voyage has been completed the support group will then return, except for in the case of artists who go on to commit suicide, in which case the support group will then be painted as contributors to the artists victimhood.
7. In the event that the artist does not either kill their self or die in a tragic accident that is played up for sympathy by placing the blame on society as a whole, their entire life will then be summarized cohesively by their actions in their final year alive.
The original trauma will always be identified and eliminated in the winter years of the artist’s life, whether it is a bad relationship with their father, a repressed memory or anything of the sort. The artist will then be free to rest peacefully and will then invariably die, as there is no more use for them story-wise, as the source of drama has thus been ended.
Either by shame or by shock that their life story has been so thoroughly bastardized, the artist will always take a dirt nap just before Oscar voting season. This will guarantee the filmmakers will win or a least get nominated for several awards out of either pity or sycophantic “sympathy and respect” for the newly deceased. Some will wonder if comprehensive autopsy has been performed out of suspicion of foul play, but will eventually become so annoyed by the mere mention of the artist’s name that they will tune it out and forget the whole thing.
Thankfully, Dewy Cox is not a real person, so this fate will not fall upon him, unless there is no sequel, in which case I guess the character would be considered technically dead.
Whew. Anyway. Going back to Walk Hard, it’s clear the Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow are well aware of these rules and take great pleasure in lampooning them one by one, so effectively, in fact, that you almost find yourself actually caring about Dewey Cox and his tragically funny life. And this is where the film really shines. All the dick and fart jokes are present and accounted for, and by dick jokes, I mean full frontal male nudity. This movie does not hold back in its language or subject matter in any way. But at the same time it’s actually a very good movie, with excellent acting throughout, especially by the film’s star, John C. Reilly.
A selection of Dewey Cox record album covers… looks a lot like my mom’s collection!
Aside from the excellent performances by the extensive list of character actors that almost reaches into triple digits, the real star of Walk Hard is of course the music. Much depends on the audience actually believing that Dewey Cox is really an iconic music figure, and Walk Hard delivers in this respect. The songs range from near perfect reproductions of music styles from several eras in music history to hilariously bad and offensive songs that will probably make you laugh out loud, if not at least crack an involuntary smirk or two.
In the end, Dewey Cox is a film that will appeal to people that hate music biopics and those that love them equally, because it so effectively punks the genre that it almost becomes the very thing that it’s trying to attack. And because people that like music biopics would probably watch a movie about a monkey pissing into his own mouth for two straight hours if it had a big enough name attached to it. Either way, go see this movie.
