Crazy Heart

Rating: 8/10 (20 October 2010)

First-time director Scott Cooper also co-writer of this rather poor story. As a matter of fact, the opening scenes were so slow and uninteresting that I almost turned the film off....stuck with it only because I was interested in seeing Jeff Bridges Academy Award performance.
Jeff Bridges, who was also involved in the production of this film, sang quite well including the award-winning song. Maggie Gyllenhaal, gave a very strong performance, she certainly deserved the nomination to best supporting actress. Robert Duvall acted well as "Bad's" friend; and Colin Farrell sang surprisingly well, as good any country singer I have heard thus far.
However, the story was not particularly interesting, it is a bit too rehashed after "Walk the Line" this story is a rather poor depiction of a drinking country singer. I am not a fan of country music, but this time I did put the subtitles and read the words of the songs which were a bit better than the melodies themselves. The accompanying musicians played rather well. The delivery by Jeff Bridges was superb, and not surprisingly so, since I once heard him interviewed saying that music was part of his family life with his father. Was much more impressed with Jeff Bridges in the film "The Fabulous Baker Boys" in which he played the piano and sang too, I thought that he should have gotten the award for that movie rather than "Crazy Heart".