Three excellent performances in a mediocre film

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2010)

I will say it from the beginning: Crazy Heart is on many aspects a copy of the brilliant film The Wrestler.Both follow a famous mature man in the decline of his career, who is defeated by life and survives thanks to the nostalgia, until a new romance renews his wishes of living and inspires him to look for redemption.I do not know if that similarity is due to the chance or the marketing, and I frankly do not care (to be fair, Crazy Heart is based on a novel written in 1987).Whatever the way it is, Crazy Heart is mediocre, but moderately entertaining, and it offers three great performances.
Leaving the comparisons with The Wrestler aside, the story from Crazy Heart tends to ramble and loose the focus.However, we are fortunately in company of Jeff Bridges in the leading role, and his magnificent performance keeps afloat even the most insipid scenes (How many times we must see him vomiting in order to establish the fact he is an alcoholic?).And, besides of Bridges, we have Robert Duvall and Maggie Gyllenhaal, two excellent actors who show credibility and conviction on their roles.However, Colin Farrell is absolutely out of place with his performance in this movie.
One of the most important fails from Crazy Heart is that I did not found the romance between Bridges' character and Gyllenhaal's very credible.I said I would not keep making comparisons, but on occasions like this one, that is unavoidable.In The Wrestler, we had two "broken" people, who had deep emotional scars which on some way made them similar people and also justified their mutual attraction.In Crazy Heart, we have a modest and intelligent reporter falling in love with a finished alcoholic musician.The problem is that the screenplay cannot establish the connection between both characters on a plausible way, so big part of the posterior drama simply feels as a whim from the screenplay.
Crazy Heart is a mediocre movie, but the performances from Bridges, Gyllenhaal and Duvall made me to be moderately interested, and I think I can give to it a slight recommendation because of that.However, I cannot deny that the movie lacks of enough deepness and substance, and that is the main thing which makes a bland experience of it.