Bridges Lives a Dream as Bad Blake, A Semi-Celeb on the Mend!

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2010)

When Thomas Cobb wrote this novel around 1988, he probably wasn't thinking to the future of how true it is when we hear others say how life imitates art. Well, get this! Ryan Bingham, who plays Tony (the musician Bad talks to at the bowling alley) is a real-life 30 year old rising country-rock star from Hobbs, New Mexico. Bingham co-wrote "The Weary Kind" with T-Bone Burnett. Bingham's recording of "The Weary Kind" won a Golden Globe & an Oscar for Best Original Song. The real Ryan Bingham won an Oscar while a fictional Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney in "Up in the Air" 2009, who was nominated the same year, did not. That's really freaky.
When Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) gets on stage, the world stands still to watch & listen as this veteran country music legend departs the wise old words of life in his songs. Actually Jeff Bridges had a long time appreciation for T-Bone Burnett, who worked on the music score on the "The Big Lebowski 1998). Jeff only agreed to play the role if T-Bone Burnett agreed to contribute a track for him to play on screen.
Married 4 times with a son to boot, Bad can't remember a time when he performed without getting lit. Once on the wagon, he made this comment to Wayne after performing his first sober performance. Alcohol changes the way you saw things. A more colorful person comes out of long term contemplation of sorrow behind a bottle, sitting on a barstool, regretting everything you did & said wrong. Actually, the best line in the film was said by Bad, "Whole worlds have been tamed by men who ate biscuits." There's not enough dark matter in the universe to fill over all the guilt you have for messing up things.
Scott Cooper, who originally wrote the screenplay as well as directed & shot this film in 24 days, does a wonderful job bringing this character to life. Although there were a few goofs in the film (nothing outstanding), the film would have been much better in my opinion if they had they kept the long scene labeled Bad relapses in the film and off the editing floor. This scenes includes a hilariously tipsy woman named Donna (Annie Dorley) who happens to be drinking in a local bar. Since the entire scene was removed, it only appears under the deleted scenes area where Dorley does get mentioned. We soon find Bad and her asleep in the back seat of his truck awaking in a drunken stupor and discover his truck will not start. Bad gets out to go for help and winds up falling down on his but in the muddy ground in the middle of a rainstorm. Typically watching a squalling man lying in the mud would only make people angry, but knowing how talented this guy is, you really start feeling sorry for him.
Bad's relationship with Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) starts out quite nice, but somehow, Bad has trouble keeping women for very long. Although he's trying real hard, she wants a perfect man and can't put with his miserable self destructive qualities. I can't really say whether Bad deserved her rejection the way it turned out, but hey, that the movies. I don't have any idea why Bad didn't wind up dead in a broken down sleazy motel dead of alcohol poisoning.
The best thing in Bad's life happens to be an old bar owner named Wayne (Robert Duvall). Duvall's role in "Tender Mercies" happens to happens to parallel "Crazy Heart" in a lot of ways and won Duvall and Academy Award as well. Thanks to Toby Keith for allowing Bridges & Colin Farrell to perform at the Journal Pavilion in Albequerque.