A Spoof Too Far

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2010)

Man, I really wanted to like this movie, and I hate the fact that I didn't. I feel like an a-hole saying that, since I'm normally the one telling people to suspend their disbelief, laugh at themselves and try to enjoy a good satire; but this isn't one. I love Reilly and Apatow, but to me "Walk Hard" was a crass spoof on a number of decidedly unfunny events.
Most notably, I think that Apatow's ill-executed machete fight was a god-awfully tasteless way to address the tragic death of Cash's brother. We're not talking about Scary Movie (which spoofed fictional characters and events) or even real-life people who did themselves in with a drug overdose; Jack Cash was a real little boy who was pulled into a table saw while trying to help his father pay the mortgage, and he suffered in fully conscious agony for a week before he died. That haunting note you hear in Johnny's lyrics are the result of decades of nightmares, guilt and being made to believe he was a worthless child who had shattered the family. Jesus Christ...what would you sound like?
I'm not laughing. Are you? Or, maybe you think it might be funnier to be a blind, black, 15-year-old orphan in 1945, trying to put your life back together after the death of your mother.
If either of those things happened to most people in this day and age, they'd spend the rest of their lives eating themselves to diabetes, developing neuroses and whining that they were out of Xanax (again).Is it any wonder that Ray or Johnny developed serious drug addictions, or that they wrecked their lives and marriages with self-destructive behavior? These "musical biopics" exists for a reason; to teach us that anything can be overcome if you've got the will and motivation to do so. Personally, I find Walk Hard (while it does have it's moments) to be an incredibly insensitive and insulting example of humor gone wrong.
Hey...heard any good holocaust jokes lately?