Great performances from the leads, but not much else going for it.

Rating: 6/10 (9 September 2006)

I watched Walk the Line a couple of evenings ago and thought I'd check out the IMDb response to the film and I just want to ask one thing: Has the world gone mad? 8.1/10? Did you all watch the movie and think "well I liked the singing in it, so that must mean it's one of the best films of all time"? I mean seriously, if it wasn't for great performances from the two leads, is this film really anything more than a mid-afternoon TV Movie? I thought Reese Witherspoon was fantastic and Joaquim Phoenix, despite not really sounding that much like Johnny Cash, was pretty damn good too - but that's all the film has going for it. Remove them and you've got "Daydream Believers: The Monkees Story". Nothing wrong with this film - in fact I seem to remember having quite an amusing time watching it stoned at about 3.30 in the afternoon when I was a student (just after I woke up) - but it's not in the top 100 films of all time and neither is "Walk the Line: The Johnny Cash Story" It's a "Well at least that's another two hours of my life enjoyably wasted" 6 out of 10 at best. Or perhaps everyone who reviewed this film had just smoked a fat one before viewing?