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Walk the Line
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation


7.7

based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 145 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some language, thematic material and depiction of drug dependency

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Dallas Roberts, Dan John Miller, Larry Bagby, and Shelby Lynne

The story of the young Johnny Cash and his incendiary love affair with June Carter Cash come to life in Walk the Line. (20th Century Fox)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Musical
WRITTEN BY:	Gill Dennis James Mangold
DIRECTED BY:	James Mangold
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 28, 2006 Theatrical: November 18, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	136 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Won Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) at the 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards.

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Walk the Line superbly combines music and two of the year's most riveting performances to tell one of the screen's great love stories.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Breaks through the conventions of its biopic form with a pair of brilliant performances and a whole lot more.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It's a celebration of the good times and bad times shared by a man and woman who found each other in the middle of some historic craziness, and it rocks.

USA Today Mike Clark

A Johnny Cash biopic equally packed with music and frustrated love, Walk the Line goes from compelling to enthralling.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The film sends you home moved and in a tuneful mood.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Witherspoon has nailed it before, notably in "Election," but her portrayal of June is astounding in its vitality and richness.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What adds boundless energy to Walk the Line is the performance by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A big, juicy, enjoyable wide-canvas biography with a handful of indelible moments.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie is entertaining, reasonably true to the facts of its subject's life and full of music.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As the star-crossed couple, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon contribute all their own vocals, and their soapier scenes together reminded me of no less than the 1954 "A Star Is Born."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

I suspect many Cash fans will think it's too conventional. But I think its conventionality is part of its power.

Slate David Edelstein

In spite of its standard biopic gaps and simplifications, Walk the Line gets the big things right.

Empire Colin Kennedy

Witherspoon's June is a pistol - a sugar-rush of screwball energy and cornball Southern sass that's meticulously earthed with grace notes of sadness.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Mangold, Phoenix, and Witherspoon, all excellent in their roles.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Cash was a true anomaly: a poseur who was also the genuine article. A better movie would have made that contradiction its core.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It doesn't matter much that Phoenix and Witherspoon sound more like Phoenix and Witherspoon than Cash and Carter. The chemistry is there. The actors walk their own line, successfully.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This movie has a driving plotline that "Ray" lacked - a love story. To me, that's what elevates this film.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A passionate, chronicle of an extraordinary artist, and a love story that can't be beat.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Thanks to the movie's very clear respect for Cash and his music, and thanks mostly to the two superb, heartfelt performances by Reese Witherspoon as Carter and Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, Walk the Line eventually earned my sympathy.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

It's frustrating that a movie about a man so deathly serious about music has largely boiled his life down to addiction and adultery.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

What Walk the Line does well, it does really well. Mangold was wisely generous with the amount of musical performance he included in the film, and the later scenes - showing Cash and Carter as partners - are so well shot and edited, they defy you to sit still.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Conventional to the core but gets a blast of pure, hard-driving energy from Joaquin Phoenix's and Reese Witherspoon's vividly realized performances.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Cash made some untamed, exhilarating sounds in its formative days. Walk the Line is strongest when it shows him in love with either his music or his muse.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The best moments in Walk the Line are the plentiful musical sequences, from Cash's initial foray into the Sun Records studio in Memphis, to his nights performing in high school auditoriums alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, to his landmark concert at Folsom Prison in 1968, where his dangerous, edgy persona was cemented.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Walk the Line is a strongly acted, musically vibrant, conventionally satisfying biopic of country/rock/blues legend Johnny Cash and his second wife, June Carter.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

An engaging biopic that would totally lack surprise were it not for Reese Witherspoon, and a healthy touch of ambivalence about the populist myth that bound The Man in Black to his adoring public.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The movie is less an uncharted journey than a 2 p.m. bus tour of a music industry legend. But like an expert guide, Mangold shepherds the story with enough grace, energy and skill to make it worthwhile.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The decision to approach Johnny's life as a love story causes Mangold to neglect the development of Johnny's music.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The problem is that the movie plays down almost everything that made Cash great: the train rumble of a voice, the direct, poetic truth of his best lyrics, the invention of his outlaw image and his constant creativity.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Cash is a legend, and deserving of a more thoughtful portrayal than what we’re offered here.

Newsweek David Ansen

This Man in Black is, frankly, a bit of a wuss. As a love story, Walk the Line can seduce. As a biopic, it treads awfully familiar Overcoming Adversity turf.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Unfortunately, for all its good music and admirable vocal impersonations, Walk the Line slides -- very, very slowly -- downhill.

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

There are too many musical performances in this movie, even for a country fan such as myself, to keep the city slickers engaged. This bespeaks great faith in the charisma of the stars, who merit it. They also, however, deserved a better script.

The New Yorker David Denby

I couldn't imagine anyone better suited to play the role. But this movie is a lot less interesting than it might be. Though it's not bad--in fact, it's rather sweet--it's too simple a portrait of a very complicated and calculating entertainer.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

For all the affection Mangold feels for Cash and Carter, the movie feels oddly dispassionate.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

In no way obsessive, Walk the Line is more sincerely--which is to say, more boringly--sincere. It doesn't leave you with much to think about, except maybe the empty vibrato of effective ventriloquism.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Ends up being another one of those life-of-an-entertainer films that reduces an artist to his most embarrassing moments.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

There is no way a feature-length movie could do justice to such bounty, and Walk the Line settles for the minimum.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 145 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Christian W. gave it a5:
Disappointing. Seemed to gloss over Johnny's dark side, drug use, arrest etc. Various scenes such as when Johnny or June are inspired to write a certain song were painfully contrived. Cash fans, I would say give it a miss and check out some of the good docos on his life instead.

Preston J gave it a5:
I'm sorry but as a film and the story that they told... I was not impressed. Yes Reese Witherspoon is a very talented actress, but Phoenix is bland and only shows rare glimmers of depth in this movie. As far as story telling goes I feel it was very rushed and basic. Rock star has traumatic childhood, Rock Star Becomes Famous, Rock Star Does Drugs, Girl rehabilitates Rock Star, Rock Star Gets Girl... every rock star movie follows said story.... blah.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Although I'm not American, Johnny Cash is for me a really great man, as he is a great musician. The movie shows him on his wrong and right sides, and is very affecting (don't know if this his the right word to tell how much i was touched) Moreover, the performance of Phoenix and Whiterspoon is really impressive.

Jared B. gave it a10:
Wow! What a great movie! Everything, from the cast to the script, was incredible. Joaquin Phoenix was amazing as the late, great Johnny Cash. And I can certainly see why Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar. She is so talented and, speaking from a male point of view, hot. Anyway, this was the best biopic of a country star's life since "Coal Miner's daughter."

John R. gave it a10:
I must have seen this movie about a million times already, and it just seems to be getting better and better every time I see it. The issues that Johnny Cash went through and the tours he was on were portrayed well. Reese Witherspoon was fantastic in the flick, she's got the pipes in her family. Awesome job by the entire crew and a great movie to have in the collection of DVDs at home.

Mike S. gave it a2:
I was surpirsed at how bad this movie was. Maybe my expectations were too high.

Amurabi M. gave it a7:
Walk the Line is a simplistic biopic, conventional at first sight that displays a powerful love story and the myth of a great musician. When someone thinks about Johnny Cash, can imagine depresion, solitude and desperation, the film portrays Cash as a regular guy, a common father and a man in love. Is that bad? Not at all, but destroys the myth of The Man in Black. Mangold tries to celebrate the life and music of a music icon and he accomplishes that but in a weak homage. Walk the Line has some terrific performances and outstanding musicals and sound, but it feels a little bit simplified. Like a Hallmark film with a real subject, Walk the Line suffers the musical biopic symptom: a little bit of saccharine and de-mythification of the subject for everyone´s tastes.

Walk the Line Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Walk the Line
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation