Confused as to why these filmmakers were allowed to make this...

Rating: 3/10 (3 March 2006)

Now, I must begin by stating that I've never really been that big of a Johnny Cash fan. But, maybe that's why my opinion of this film holds some modicum of credence: a lack of bias. Before seeing the film, I didn't know too much about his life except that one of my all-time heroes Shel Silverstein wrote many of his songs, and a bit about what he did before he died (working with the likes of Rick Rubin and Trent Reznor, his wife dying right before he did, etc.)
So, I went into WALK THE LINE with a true tabula rasa, not knowing what to expect out of his life.
My only really bias for the film at all was that James Mangold was tapped as the director even though his GIRL,INTERRUPTED was mediocre at best, IDENTITY was absolutely horrendous (and forgettable), and KATE&LEOPOLD was certainly nothing to think about. Gill Dennis, the writer, had done nothing at all beforehand except for a few random movies no one has heard of before (LINCOLN ON THE NOSE?!?)
And these are the people who are to make a biopic about Johnny Cash?!? Yes, I never really liked his music too much, but this doesn't mean I don't respect him as a man and for what his music did for the rock-a-billy and folk music world (music of which I enjoy quite well).
It wasn't too bad for me that the character of Johnny was a whining milquetoast throughout the entire film who spent his time either crying, falling down, doing copious amounts of an unknown drug every five minutes, or begging June Carter to marry him (and then having constant childish temper tantrums whenever she would say no), but that nothing in the movie ever changed.
There was never a sense of growth or movement in the film. There was never a real sense of conflict less his problems with June Carter, which I would imagine must have been a LITTLE more three-dimensional than the representation in this banal film.
The steady ebb and flow of the film grew further and further monastic, as any time there was any real potential for something new, time was compacted and we were left experiencing nothing. ***POSSIBLE SPOILER*** (a sequence toward the end of the film in which Johnny is at his nadir, living in an apartment with Waylon Jennings, and then all of a sudden it's years later and he's wandering through a beautiful forest to discover a magnificent treehouse that he can now suddenly afford... what happened in the middle there, James and Gill?!? Why not let us in a little bit?!?)
***DEFINITE SPOILER**** The hackneyed "love" (really no semblance of love here, Cash just basically beats Carter down as much as he can until she's so embarrassed and mentally abused that she gives in... I doubt this is the way it happened, and if it did, that's a real shame) story completely takes over every other aspect of the film or the story of Johnny Cash the musician. The three or four other plotpoints slowly dissipate such as exhibited with his sense of immense loss over his brother or his problems with his father. In fact, the end of the film abruptly and without any hint just brings us to some random moment in Cash's life when: BAM! Dad loves him again for no reason we, the audience, can ascertain. But, I guess when the movie ends, you have to tie up those loose strings even if they're not ready to be tied.
The movie was certainly watchable, but in the end wholly prototypical and bland. I'm just as confused why this movie is garnering the praise its gained (less the usual Hollywood politics nonsense) as why it was made by its filmmakers.
But, I guess that's how it goes.
Matt's suggestions for TRUE Best Pictures of the Year:
1) LAST DAYS 2) WHERE THE TRUTH LIES 3) ROMAN POLANSKI'S OLIVER TWIST 4) DEAR WENDY 5) KISS KISS BANG BANG 6) GRIZZLY MAN
Thanx, MK