Comparisons are rife between this tale of a down-on-his-luck musician and last year’s The Wrestler. Both are portrayed by Hollywood screen giants embodying washed up booze hounds at the nadir of their careers, tackling personal demons and looking for meaning in their vacuous lives.
Let’s get one thing clear before we reach the chorus of this review: Crazy Heart isn’t a patch on Darren Aronofsky’s bruising tale of humanity, nowhere near it. It’s a lightweight version that treads a similar path, recommended for the sole reason of seeing Jeff Bridges at the very top of his game. He’s given the chance to own a movie for the first time in ages and delivers in spades. And heck, who wouldn’t want to see “The Dude” back in a bowling alley?
Bridges is Bad Blake, a one-time country music legend, now forced to play as background music in a ten-pin bowling alley. He has sex with his pension pushing groupies, always has his belt undone for easy access, and can be found at the fire exit of most clubs vomiting on his own sunglasses. It’s when a journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal) decides to do a “man behind the man” piece on Blake that he begins a journey of self-discovery and possible redemption.
Even if you can’t stand country music there is so much joy to be found in Bridges’ performance. He shuffles through the early part of the movie in an alcohol fuelled stupor but always has a twinkle in his eye that’s matched any time he picks up a guitar. It is clearly a passion for the actor, and it’s no surprise that his musical numbers as well as his performance are contenders for Oscars.
Robert Duvall does his gravely know-it-all with aplomb and Colin Farrell’s pony-tailed rival, brilliantly named Tommy Sweet, proves that In Bruges was the performance launchpad his faltering career needed. Gone is the cocksure arrogance of an actor thinking he’d already arrived, here replaced with a genuinely warm and likeable role. It’s Gyllenhaal that strikes the wrong chords with her deliverance of a couple of over-earnest clichés and the relative ease with which this supposedly sensible woman falls for Blake’s initially lecherous charms.
But this is Jeff Bridges’ movie, and a thoroughly adequate one at that, elevated by a wonderful centre-stage act. It feels like one of those albums on which the three or four great tracks are scattered among some middle-of-the-road songs you’re sure you’ve heard before.
[etRating value=“ 3”]
Let’s get one thing clear before we reach the chorus of this review: Crazy Heart isn’t a patch on Darren Aronofsky’s bruising tale of humanity, nowhere near it. It’s a lightweight version that treads a similar path, recommended for the sole reason of seeing Jeff Bridges at the very top of his game. He’s given the chance to own a movie for the first time in ages and delivers in spades. And heck, who wouldn’t want to see “The Dude” back in a bowling alley?
Bridges is Bad Blake, a one-time country music legend, now forced to play as background music in a ten-pin bowling alley. He has sex with his pension pushing groupies, always has his belt undone for easy access, and can be found at the fire exit of most clubs vomiting on his own sunglasses. It’s when a journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal) decides to do a “man behind the man” piece on Blake that he begins a journey of self-discovery and possible redemption.
Even if you can’t stand country music there is so much joy to be found in Bridges’ performance. He shuffles through the early part of the movie in an alcohol fuelled stupor but always has a twinkle in his eye that’s matched any time he picks up a guitar. It is clearly a passion for the actor, and it’s no surprise that his musical numbers as well as his performance are contenders for Oscars.
Robert Duvall does his gravely know-it-all with aplomb and Colin Farrell’s pony-tailed rival, brilliantly named Tommy Sweet, proves that In Bruges was the performance launchpad his faltering career needed. Gone is the cocksure arrogance of an actor thinking he’d already arrived, here replaced with a genuinely warm and likeable role. It’s Gyllenhaal that strikes the wrong chords with her deliverance of a couple of over-earnest clichés and the relative ease with which this supposedly sensible woman falls for Blake’s initially lecherous charms.
But this is Jeff Bridges’ movie, and a thoroughly adequate one at that, elevated by a wonderful centre-stage act. It feels like one of those albums on which the three or four great tracks are scattered among some middle-of-the-road songs you’re sure you’ve heard before.
[etRating value=“ 3”]
