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Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Walking Hard, or Hardly Walking?
Every comedy has its moments, and this Walk Hard doesn't have anything spectacular to make it stand out from all the other passable, but ultimately forgettable, comedies. John C. Reilly plays Dewey Cox, who is basically Johnny Cash... this is, after all, a spoof of a biopic.
First of all, the fake Southern accents were a bit much. It was cute at first, but it soon became a little grating and obviously fake. Judd Apatow co-wrote this, but I get the feeling that he's better at doing "realistic" comedies. There is absolutely no sense of morality or character development in Walk Hard, unlike in Apatow's previous movies. I'm not saying that every movie needs this, but I left the theater feeling like this could have been a ten-part series on SNL or something. Every switch in scene is just a set-up for another gag, and a lot of moments in Dewey's life are skipped over. Nowhere do characters actually have a conversation with each other for a reason that doesn't involve setting up a joke.
I know that John C. Reilly is the "main man," but Tim Meadows got the most laughs from me, including a continuous drug joke. However, absolutely no one laughed at the Incredible Hulk joke. I'm not saying all the jokes were bad, but the pacing of the whole movie was off. Huge chunks of Dewey's life get ignored; Dewey's life is missing a few scenes in my opinion.
But before I start getting too negative, I want to say that this movie has some very good jokes, and some good songs, although the hip-hop one was a bit too cheesy. I know a lot of work was put into the songs, and except for the aforementioned rap song, they were well put together. I know that Jewel (what a voice!) Ghostface Killah, Lyle Lovett, and Jackson Browne contribute to the title song "Walk Hard" (and I think Jewel sings for Jenna in the duet, although I could be wrong), while Reilly sings all of his songs well. Still, is this Spinal Tap? Not quite. The best song had to be the Bob Dylan spoof, followed closely by a clever little duet with Jenna Fischer. Jenna Fischer plays Dewey's main girl (he sleeps with 411 of them according to the tagline, but we don't really see many of them). Jenna does a pretty good job, but she doesn't get a lot of serious acting here anyway. It was strange seeing in a lot of cute dresses and hair styles. Definitely not the same Jenna you're used to in The Office, that's for sure.
Oh, and if you were expecting boatloads of "Cox" jokes, the whole middle portion of the movie was seriously lacking in them. I know that Walk Hard doesn't take itself seriously at all, but I got the feeling that if it did, I would have cared more about it. All in all, a slightly above average comedy.
American Gangster (2007)
Still kind of a letdown, considering all the hype
How do I put this? American Gangster is good enough of a movie to distract you from the questions you'll find yourself asking about the plot, for a while at least. The movie is very well acted - Denzel and Crowe don't disappoint. They are, however, showing their age. Neither have the chiseled face bones, and Denzel looks like he has man-boobs in one scene when he has a wifebeater on. Not that this detracts from the movie in any way. Just don't expect Crowe to look like he did in Gladiator, though. I won't go through all the nice points because I was expecting it to be good (and it was), but I will talk about my biggest concern.
Getting past all the badassery Frank commits, we never get a clear picture of who Frank (Washington's character) is. He's charming in front of his family, and then all of a sudden he's bashing people's heads in the middle of a dinner party with his family members around. He plays with Crowe's character in one scene, then abruptly capitulates to him in the next (even though he says something to the effect of never giving up earlier in the movie). He lets his nephew, get involved in his dealings instead of telling him 'no', but hands out turkeys to the public. Sometimes an unpredictable/double sided character is good, but not here; when the poop hits the fan, so to speak, the audience has absolutely no idea what Frank is going to do because we are still not really sure which kind of person his really is deep down. I somehow expected this to dawn on me, but the ending happened before I could figure it out. I also wasn't sure if I should be rooting for Frank at the end. I mean, everybody roots for Denzel (even in Training Day, right?) because he's Denzel, and that kind of complicates things.
Expect a lengthy (in a good way) movie with an abrupt ending that has you wondering what the hell his family thinks of him now (I don't want to ruin the ending, so I won't say more than this). Also, don't expect as much action as is hinted at in the trailer. This isn't a gun-toting shoot-em-up, and the Italians mentioned in the trailer aren't starting a turf war or anything.
I did really like how the last scene was shot, though. Overall, if I were to set it up in one sentence, I would say that American Gangster is a great movie with a somewhat flawed ending.