Movie 49: Crazy Heart

Kris Kristofferson (Jeff Bridges) plays Bad Blake, a washed up country singer playing bowling alleys and shit holes. Life on the road and in the bottle is taking its toll on Bad. But can he find redemption and a new lease on life when an attractive young reporter and her son enter it? Maybe with some help from his former mentee Tommy who’s a big old country star now.

Wow I made that sound like a flippin TV movie. It’s The Wrestler, but with country music instead of pretend hitting.

And it’s good, possibly as good as The Wrestler maybe not quite as good. They have the fact that I think they’re both a bit over rated in common. That’s not saying I didn’t like Crazy Heart, I did, but I don’t quite get the hoo ha. I’ll get to performances in a bit but I want to cover two others things first

First off, the music. I like country music. Well, I like SOME country music. Fact is there probably isn’t a kind of music I don’t like at least some off. So I will happily admit to being a fan of good country, the obvious example being Johnny Cash but I like other stuff too (no, not just The Gambler). And for the most part this film contains good country music. There’s a couple of tunes I didn’t particularly go for, but the music ain’t bad.

Secondly, it’s too damned short. It needs maybe another half hour? There’s a little bit of spoilage here so skip a paragraph if you don’t want spoiled. Yes the love story is a bit rushed but that’s okay here as it’s supposed to be that kind of love. The rush in when you shouldn’t kind. But I would have liked maybe a bit more of bad touring some shit holes first, even a montage. His rehab is skipped over making the whole thing seem to damned simple. “My names Bad, I’m an alcoholic” “I’m cured!”. Now AA meetings and rehab have been done to death in movies, but some kind of struggle to get over what’s probably near 40 years of straight drinkin would have been nice. And finally the ending is far too quick. They literally skip to the end. Exposition in the last 20 minutes is lacking and it looks like someone dropped a bit of the script in a shredder by accident.

And spoilage is done. As for the performances, well there isn’t a bum one in it. I joked that Jeff played Kris Kristofferson and he partly did as he was an inspiration. He’s a damned fine actor and he embodies the drunken country singer perfectly. It didn’t really have the kind of moments I’d expect in a performance that’s being hyped so much though, but I’ll get to that in an oscar post. Maggie Gylenhall does have a couple of those moments, though the majority of the time it’s just an adequate acting job. Adequate sounds harsh, believable. I was pretty damned impressed with Colin Farrell though.

Unfortunately all three suffered a little from what felt like a rushed story. Not enough meat to sink there teeth in too. Oh there was some meat, and it was nice meat, but it left me a bit too hungry after. Leave them wanting more yes, but from the end of the movie not the middle to end. Done right it makes you want to see the characters a while longer, done wrong it makes you feel like you left the room a few times. I got a bit of that feeling.

Still good though.

Next up: Sherlock Holmes