I became a die-hard Cash fan after watching it, and I'm sure any of you other casual viewers out there will become so too

Rating: 10/10 (23 July 2007)

Truth be told, I've never thought highly about Academy Award nominee actor Joaquin Phoenix, despite watching him in numerous films (The Village, Ladder 49, Signs, 8 MM and more). It was only when I happened to stumble upon the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line during a free screening I won on the internet, that I discovered this great, versatile, larger than life talent in all his glory. If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn that Phoenix was the Man in Black himself, singing and going through the complex notions of life on screen. The young actor literally became Johnny Cash, and the amount of electricity and enthusiasm that went into his role was enough to light up any Ring of Fire in sight.
In Walk the Line, director James Mangold and actor Joaquin Phoenix took what could have been another routine retelling of a great musician's life (a la Ray or De-Lovely) and turned into a musical romp, with the help of Phoenix's dead-on performance and Cash's original songs, that helped introduce this recently deceased country music phenomena to a whole new generation of admirers.
Now, enough about the Phoenix jabbering There's one more cinematic god, I mean goddess, to thank for this musical masterpiece. Reese Witherspoon, previously famous for her dumb-yet-sassy-blonde role in the Legally Blonde travesties, made a gigantic leap into the big league due to her portrayal of the unstoppable June Carter in this film. Carter, a country music talent on her own right, was also Cash's stage and bed partner, and eventually became his long-time wife (after an endless period of courtship). Since both leads deliver the musical bits single handed, words can't express the awe I felt upon encountering Witherspoon's dramatic and vocal side. As much as the film chronicles Johnny Cash's rise and fall, it also follows the bittersweet love story between Carter and Cash, with some of the most powerful sequences feeding off from the tension and chemistry between these two alone.
Walk the Line, to me, is an epic tale of fame, music and love; while at the same breathe manages to be something different completely  an ode to one of the 20th centuries biggest musical talents. I became a die-hard Cash fan after watching it, and I'm sure any of you other casual viewers out there will become so too.