Walks the line.

Rating: 6/10 (23 July 2019)

For the most part, this satirical music-biopic plays things totally straight, sending up the entire genre just by adhering to its strict formula while making each event overly melancholic and utterly absurd. 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)' tells the made-up life-story of a made-up musician in exactly the same way that most films tell the real life-stories of real musicians. As such, some of its funniest moments come not when it's being silly but when it's being serious, playing directly into the tropes that we've all come to expect from a well-worn and, frankly, worn-out filmic category. It comes very close to being mean-spirited but manages to stay on the right side of that line by always aiming at the musical movies instead of the musical figures. Though it takes particular aim at 'Walk The Line (2004)' and 'Ray (2004)', it manages to parody basically every music-biopic to be released both before and after. This isn't to imply that it's always hilarious, however. While it's often funny - though, not always - and it pretty consistently makes astute observations, it does starts to wear a little thin towards its mid-section. Here, it can only ever be as entertaining as a generic music-biopic - which isn't all that entertaining - because that's exactly what it's presented as. I'll also say that the stereotyping of its Jewish characters, while clearly supposed to be poking fun at the more subtle stereotyping done by other films, is pretty problematic. Still, the picture is never dull and it manages to leave things on a very high note (the best joke of in entire affair, somewhat unfortunately, plays after the credits). It actually makes you realise just how much the music-biopic relies on its audience knowing that its narrative is (supposedly) mostly true, as the filmmaking and storytelling used to convey it are basic, at best. It also shows just how generic the genre really is, as it satirises basically every single entry in it. It's not always laugh-out-loud, but it is always enjoyable. 6/10