Not so crazy and a lot of heart

Rating: 8/10 (24 February 2010)

So here we have Bridges doing what he does so brilliantly in every film he's ever appeared in - effortlessly sucking us in to his story, making us care, through the sheer easy confidence of his presence.
It's this deceptive (and rare) quality which has caused him to be excruciatingly under-appreciated for years, and as a longtime fan, I'm thrilled that he's finally being given some props, in the form of the great reviews for his performance and of course all the Best Actor awards he's gotten thus far, which I hope will culminate in his winning the Oscar on March 7th. As others have said, it would also be a lifetime recognition award, and there's nobody working in films today who is more worthy.
It's hard to separate the film from Bridges' performance, since in this case his performance IS the film. T-Bone Burnett's music is excellent, Maggie Gyllenhaal is wonderful as always, the little boy who plays her son is adorable and Colin Farrell gives a unexpectedly effective turn as the country music star Blake mentored, but every frame of Crazy Heart belongs to Bridges, plain and simple.
He sort of evokes a cross between Kris Kristofferson and Nick Nolte in his performance, but it's genuinely heartfelt nonetheless, not a caricature. As always, he gets inside the character, inhabiting him from a profoundly deep place, and it's this quality which makes what he does seem so effortless - by becoming the person so completely, so intimately, we forget he's acting but rather we feel as if we're almost intruding on his life in a voyeuristic way when we watch him.
Crazy Heart isn't a great movie by any stretch - it gets hugely simplistic toward the end - but it's good enough to leave us feeling that we've experienced something authentic, that we've spent time with someone worthwhile.