Tuesday, January 1, 2008

“WALK HARD : The DEWEY COX STORY”

(John C. Reilly)

The funniest ‘spoof’ in years - Silly? Yes, without a doubt. But I laughed out loud multiple times during this saga because of its ‘serious’ silliness. I dreaded the song parodies because, let’s face it – they never work. Until now. What should have been the most annoying segment is actually one of the more enjoyable as Dewey & his cute new back-up singer warble their way thru the sappy sounding “Let’s Duet” but the lyrics are hilarious.Great to see John C. Reilly pull off this leading part - & he does with great aplomb; the story starts with Dewey & his older brother as children – a horrible accident (Spoofing ‘Ray’) leaves Dewey’s dad with this ‘creed’ for life – ‘The wrong kid died’.

Then we see Dewey at age 14 & John C. has already stepped into the role; the actress playing his 12 year old girlfriend is easily in her late thirties – they don’t even try to ‘fix’ their creases with make-up & that mere fact made me chuckle.Dewey then goes thru every phase imaginable; “Walk Hard”, his break thru hit comes during his Johnny Cash phase (naturally).An ongoing gag with his drummer (Tim Meadows) finds Dewey experimenting with every drug that comes into vogue thru the sixties – to the modern day; with Meadows spouting the same line every time Dewey finds him with a couple of beautiful women hiding in a closet – “Oh, no, Dewey – You don’t want to have any part of this!” It worked on me every time, right up to the night of the reunion concert when Dewey finds his drummer using the latest ‘in fashion’ drug of choice.Meadows shines once again when the members of the band turn on Dewey & tell him all the rotten things he’s done to them over the years – Tim repeats the same line each time its his turn to speak; trust me, it will make you laugh.Being a huge Beatles fan, I feared the segment where Dewey meets the Fab Four, but they pulled it off as Jack Black (Paul) Paul Rudd (John) Jason Schwartzman (Ringo) & the kid from “Die Hard 4” & those lame computer ads (George) used over-exaggerated English accents to lambaste my childhood idols.

The scene ends with the happy-go-lucky charming mop tops at each other’s throats. I laughed – even my non-Beatle fan wife laughed.Funniest movie of the year? Well, it’s a top candidate, that’s for sure. If you’re in the mood for just some plain silliness, I would highly recommend “Walk Hard” even though it contains scenes involving my least favorite sight gag – male genitalia. Yet, when Dewey’s father comes to visit him at his hotel room & Dewey opens the door wrapped in a bed sheet with a totally nude roadie standing beside him looking ‘completely satisfied’ – even I couldn’t help but be amused.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I completely agree! I went and saw this last night with a major hang over from new years. It was the best medicine that I could hope for. I had a warning of the full frontal nudity although it still was a shocker. Thanks for an amazingly acurate review!