A movie full of heart, and great incentive: Bridges

Rating: 9/10 (11 August 2015)

Amen! This frickin' great actor finally got the gold. I remember reading back in early 1987, someone saying that Oscar Win should be just around the corner for Bridges. Years later, he was voted the Oscar nominee, best deserved of a win. And if you see this win, you'll understand why he won it. Why? Because Bridges has really scratched the inside of this character. He's being, not acting. It was very natural and believable, but more so, I emphasize natural. He's a aging country singer called Bad Blake, and boy Bridges can sing too, but in the acting department, he brings it all. He has two vices, among others, that have slowly destroyed him, and we're really in the crux of his alcoholism, snubbing the advice, of experts, telling him he's on a collision with death. He smokes hard too. Among many great performances, this movie, not the first one, where he's played an alcoholic, he really makes the role his. He falls in love with a much younger woman/single mother/journalist, (a much spunky Maggie Gylenhall, really smoking up the screen) who's made many a mistake, of meeting the wrong men, and a cute, if inspiring relationship develops. Bridges really has his moments, whether funny, human, sad or pitiful, Bridges, of course the main reason, for watching this film, which I'm bloody glad I did. I'll be honest, I don't go for many of the films, Jeff Bridges does, kind of a personal conflict, when it's an actor you love. What clings to mind, in familiarity, is that of another great actor I admire, Daniel Day Lewis's, where his select movie choices are almost all ones I hated. Bridge's character really grows on you, one of such realism, which such human flaws, too real at times. He has his rude moments, early on, for us, hysterically entertaining, and his relationship with that of Gylenhall's little boy, was also cute. His relationship, with his real son, who he abandoned when a kid, we only hear in a morbid over the phone scene, is shattering as to his son's blunt response. His new found family is his salvation and his inspiration, where sadly in the end, despite Blake's turning his life around, sobering up, I really hoped Gylenhall and him stayed together. Bridges is so so, a reason to watch this, in a film I would of never seen, outside of t.v., where I caught it one night, just to see how amazing this performance was. To those who don't think he deserved this, they really can't see what great acting's about, or in other words, the closer picture. Well, look closer. Colin Farrell as a young inspired country singer, is wasted, if almost forgettable, as hardly getting screen time, where he puts the music and voice to Bridges's hit new song, inspired by his salvation duo. Robert Duvall has a nice cute role, as a bar owner, years beyond his wiseness, and good friend of Blakes. A nice character touch.