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Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Columbia Pictures (Sony)
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language
Starring
John C. Reilly,
Jenna Fischer,
Tim Meadows,
and
Kristen Wiig
America loves Cox! But behind the singer/songwriter's music is the up-and-down-and-up-again story of a musician whose songs would change a nation. On his rock-and-roll spiral, Cox sleeps with 411 women, marries three times, has 22 kids and 14 stepkids, stars in his own '70s TV show, collects friends ranging from Elvis to the Beatles to a chimp, and gets addicted to--and then kicks--every drug known to humankind...but despite it all, Cox grows into a national icon. (Sony Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Judd Apatow
Jake Kasdan
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Jake Kasdan
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 8, 2008
Theatrical: December 21, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
96 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
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...
91
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
For 45 minutes, it zings along on perfectly pitched overstatement.
90
Time
Richard Schickel
Not since "This is Spinal Tap" have I had such a good time watching amiable idiocy stumble on toward uncertain glory.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
A pitch-perfect musical comedy that at long last moves the talented John C. Reilly up the billing ladder from second banana to top banana.
80
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Smart and genial satire.
75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
This kind of parody is hard to sustain for an hour and a half, and "Walk Hard" does gets wearying at times. But the humor is so outrageous, the original music so much fun and Reilly so good - both while hamming it up in the role and in singing the songs - that it's irresistible.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
For pure, uncomplicated enjoyment, it's the movie to see right now.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
John C. Reilly, with his homely face and mop of curly hair, has been the movies' second banana of choice since his debut in 1989's "Casualties o War." In the comedy, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," he finally gets a starring role and he rises to the challenge.
75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
If you want to escape all the deadly serious fare of this pre-awards season, run to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.Why? Cox rocks. This rowdy spoof of music biopics is silly fun and often hilarious.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Reilly is required to walk a tightrope; is he suffering or kidding suffering, or kidding suffering about suffering? That we're not sure adds to the appeal.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The movie walks the line of surreal vulgarity (you will not, repeat not, expect the penis), yet most of it, intentionally, is less nutzoid than your average megaplex genre parody.
75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
The first 30 or so minutes of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story condense the entire Hollywood biopic genre into a sweet chewable tablet. It's the Flintstones vitamin of spoofs.
75
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
It should be noted that Walk Hard is aimed at a fairly specific sort of movie subgenre -- it's practically an extended "SNL" sketch -- and it doesn't produce belly laughs so much as steady smiles of recognition over how accurately it's nailing its target. But it really nails that target.
70
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
The film is more funny ha-ha than LOL; it’s a smarty-pants satire that mocks and embraces almost every cliché in the biography playbook.
67
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Walk Hard offers a quantity of laughs that few comedies could match, yet it's likely to leave viewers vaguely unsatisfied, particularly when the closing minutes completely run out of steam. That's the danger of spoofs: You're only as good as your last laugh.
67
Austin Chronicle
Toddy Burton
It’s apparent that the sharp comic forces behind this epic are simply a couple of juvenile men who think it’s hilarious to show a man’s penis on screen just for the sake of itself. But the embarrassing truth is that, well, sometimes it is.
63
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
When Cox is performing, the movie is firing on all cylinders.
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
While it might not have the laughs-per-minute ratio of the "Naked Gun" movies (but then, what does?), it is a reliable titter generator for boomers and their echo boomlings.
63
Premiere
Eric Alt
So you'll laugh, you'll groan, you'll leave the theater singing "I'm gonna beat off….all my demons/That's what lovin' Jesus is all about" -- and isn't that, ultimately, a good thing? Yes.
63
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
I loved both "Walk the Line" and "Ray," but it will be hard to watch either one with a straight face again after the skewering they get in this Judd Apatow production, which quotes scene after scene to hilarious effect.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
The movie manages a couple of popcorn-spitting-funny jokes for each biographical decade the film covers, though typically it's no better than moderately clever.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
For those who enjoy the saturation style of humor and appreciate the way in which parody is not pushed too far into the absurd, Walk Hard is not without merit.
63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The tunes are so good, you can’t believe the film itself doesn’t amount to more, especially with the rightness of the casting. Still, a few laughs are better than none.
63
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The tricky thing about parody movies is that the jokes get old fast and they're hit-and-miss. Walk Hard, a spoof of every musical biopic from "Ray" to "Walk the Line," is guilty on both counts. How lucky that when the jokes do hit, they kick major ass.
60
Variety
Brian Lowry
Strums the genre for considerable laughs, with John C. Reilly playing the title balladeer from teen to senior citizen, generating enough goodwill to offset the flat sections and a decidedly juvenile streak.
60
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
Is Walk Hard” funny? Sure; very much so, in places. At least I think it is. It might just be the “Date Movie” talking.
60
Empire
Damon Wise
John C Reilly just about holds together a funny but patchy comedy that puts a ten-megaton bomb under the cliched rock biopic – and never detonates it.
50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Funniest in its first half, when you're not quite sure where it's going, and drags in the second, by which time you realize it's going nowhere.
50
The New Yorker
David Denby
Walk Hard runs down quickly, and suffers further from having the wide-eyed and weightless Reilly as its star.
50
Village Voice
Jim Ridley
This burlesque of biopic clichés flounders from one setup to the next without the engine that drives the genre: a strong central character.
50
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
The best part of Walk Hard, oddl enough, is the music. I might not care to see Walk Hard" a second time, but I can't wait to hear it again.
50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Apatow and director Jake Kasdan deliver a fair number of laughs, though nearly every good idea is pressed into service as a running gag. The biggest disappointment is their survey of rock history, which has all the depth of a Time-Life book.
38
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The film is a saggy, oddly mean-spirited takeoff of "Walk the Line."
 The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 71 User Votes
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