Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Plot synopsis:
Dewey Cox begins his quest for stardom in Springberry, Alabama in 1946. While playing with his brother Nate, Dewey accidentally cuts his brother in half at the waist with a machete. This leads Dewey's father to frequently repeat the phrase "The wrong kid died" throughout the film. The trauma causes Dewey to lose his sense of smell "you've gone smell blind," states Dewey's mother. After his brother's death is announced by a physician making a house call, Dewey's mother sends him to the local store to buy some butter and a candle. There, he meets a blues guitarist, who lets Dewey play his guitar. Dewey is a natural.
In 1953, after a successful, yet oddly controversial, talent show performance, then 14-year-old Dewey decides to leave Springberry with his newly identified 12-year-old girlfriend, Edith. They soon marry and have a baby; Edith begins to criticize Dewey and insist that his dream of being a musician will never happen. While working at an all-African American nightclub, Dewey gets a break when he replaces singer Bobby Shad at the last minute, much to the delight of the Hasidic Jewish record executives attending the show.
Dewey then is brought to the studio where he is interrupted while recording a rockabilly rendition of "That's Amore". The recording executive berates Dewey as talentless. Backed into a corner, Dewey makes the first recording of "Walk Hard", the song inspired by a speech Dewey gave to Edith.
Within 35 minutes, the song becomes a hit, and Dewey begins to get caught up in the fame of rock and roll. When Dewey stumbles upon a room of groupies smoking with drummer Sam, Sam introduces Dewey to marijuana. Sam tells Dewey to leave because he "don't want no part of this shit" (a running gag throughout the film) but Dewey eventually tries it and continues to do so every time he finds Sam with a new drug. His attitude and drug problems cause him to become unfaithful to Edith. Dewey's father then returns to inform Dewey that Dewey's mother has died. Pa manages to make Dewey feel responsible for her death, contributing to an already high level of inner turmoil. Dewey is then introduced to cocaine, which leads to a change in his music to a louder, "Punk rock" type. With the addition of backup singer Darlene Madison, Dewey produces several more hit records. However, they become attracted to each other, and Dewey weds Darlene while still married to Edith, which leads to both women leaving him. He then snaps at his monkey companion, who is "only concerned with fruit and touching himself". Dewey is eventually busted after purchasing drugs from an undercover cop, serves time in jail, and spends time in rehab before Darlene returns.
They move to Berkeley, California in 1966 at the beginning of the '60s counterculture movement. Dewey writes protest songs for midgets. His singing style is then compared by a reporter to that of Bob Dylan, which Dewey angrily denies. In the next scene, a music video shows that Dewey's new song mimics Dylan's style, including opaque lyrics ("The mouse with the overbite explained/how the rabbits were ensnared/ and the skinny scanty sylph/ trashed the apothecary diplomat/ inside the three-eyed monkey/ within inches of his toaster-oven life.").
During a band visit to India, Dewey takes LSD with The Beatles, which causes Dewey to lose touch with reality yet again and have a Yellow Submarine-esque hallucination. Dewey becomes obsessed with every aspect of the recording process and is consumed with creating his masterpiece entitled Black Sheep (a homage to Brian Wilson's Smile). The band does not appreciate his insane style of music and his continuous abuse of the others in the group (Sam specifically berates Dewey ad nauseam for never paying for any drugs -- "Not once!"). As a result, the band breaks up; Darlene is also unable to deal with Dewey's insanity and drug problems and leaves him. Dewey goes through another stay in rehab, where he is visited by Nate's ghost. Nate ridicules Dewey's self-pity and tells him to start writing songs again.
Dewey is next seen jogging into the 1970s, and hosting a CBS variety television show. But his song-block prevents him from writing a masterpiece for his brother. (In the director's cut, Dewey remarries again, this time to Cheryl Tiegs.) Nate appears again and tells Dewey that he needs to tell Pa that he loves him. Although Dewey's father appreciates his courage, he challenges Dewey to a fight to the death with machetes. However, Pa accidentally cuts himself in half. Just before he dies, the senior Cox forgives Dewey and tells him to be a better father than he was. His death causes Dewey to have an emotional breakdown and he destroys almost everything in his home.
Dewey accepts that it is time to focus on spending time with his numerous children. Darlene returns to him in 1992, she is divorced and single. Dewey talks to Darlene about what he has done since they last met. After finally understanding what is most important to him, Dewey regains his sense of smell and they got remarried.
In 2007, Dreidel L'Chaim who is L'Chaim son, pays Dewey a visit to his house. Dewey becomes popular with younger listeners through rapper Lil' Nutzzak's sampling of "Walk Hard". Dewey is upset about this at first, but pays it little mind when he is informed that he is to receive the lifetime achievement award. Dewey is reluctant to play a song at first, fearing the temptations he once succumbed to, but his wife, children and grandchildren put their full support behind him. Dewey reunites with his band and he is finally able to fulfill his dream of creating one great masterpiece that sums up his entire life with his final song, "Beautiful Ride." A title card notes that Dewey died three minutes after the performance.
After the credits roll, a short black-and-white clip titled "The actual Dewey Cox, 2002" is played.

Tags: comedy, satire

Review:
It follows the formula nearly perfectly, and follows fake rock-star legend Dewey Cox (and yes, they do have plenty of puns with his name, but this is to be expected) through his life in the 50's, 60's, 70's and into today.The surprise of "Walk Hard" is that although it was written by the guys who made "Superbad" and "Knocked Up", and has the "formula spoof" similar to "Scary Movie" and "Epic Movie", this film manages to be quite intelligent, and manages to avoid overly gross out humor.
He plays the role from ages 14 to 71, and the goofy age difference between Reilly and how old of a character he is playing is another one of the film's ironic self-aware quirky jokes, in which he constantly reminds us of his age throughout the film so we can see this, as well as the purposely awkward looking make-up.Jenna Fischer is great as his love interest and duet partner, a parody of Reese Witherspoon in "Walk the Line", who falls on and off for Dewey throughout the movie based on his life decisions, another movie formula cliché.
It jumps into his problem a bit fast and doesn't go into depth into some areas of his life as much as others.However, despite being somewhat uneven, "Walk Hard" remains a very entertaining, very funny, and witty movie.
Watch especially for Lennon, McCartney and Buddy Holly.REVIEW: 3 out of 4 Java Mugs What is remarkable about this movie is the way we feel about the main character, Dewey Cox. It's easy to find sympathy for the likes of Johnny Cash and Ray Charles because we knew them as real people.
Riley actually becomes Dewey Cox, by singing his heart out and even helping to write many of the film's songs.Other performances are also worthy of note, particularly Fischer's sultry Darlene, Wiig's ever-pregnant Edith and Meadows' drug-addled drummer.Though Riley's singing is quite good, it is still nice to have the likes of Lyle Lovett, Jackson Browne, Jewel, Ghostface Killah and Eddie Vedder playing themselves and singing those Dewey Cox originals.
I think this movie is a different direction for Judd and his band, as it is more similar to Airplane in style than it is to Knocked Up. But that impressed me that they took that risk and made it work -- and it definitely worked as me and the rest of the theatre were laughing with regularity.Without getting too much into the details of the movie because I hate spoilers, the thing that made this movie great to me was the unexpected humor.
Reilly in the lead role, who obviously got a lot of the funniest lines, Tim Meadows as Dewey Cox's drummer really cracked me up, and Paul Rudd as Jon Lennon cracked up the entire theatre.It was definitely one of those movies where you're recalling a lot of funny parts a day later.
So while it may be a different type of movie than the Apatow groups' other work, the sense of funny is still there, and I think this is up there with the best comedies of the year..
And if there is a musical genre out there short of orchestral symphony, it gets sent up by this wonderful comedy.Not a movie for the kiddies by a long shot, but if you are familiar with music artists from the 50s on, and especially if you lived through those periods of time, the parody of styles and stars will leave you with sore sides from laughing.Make sure to listen closely to every lyric.
They don't miss a chance to make jokes subtle or broad, and they don't take it easy on anyone.Songs in the credits are just as funny as songs through the body of the movie, so make sure to wait around for those rather than switching off after the story itself fades to black.A personal favorite of mine are the scenes where Dewey discovers new drugs.
It was a truly hilarious movie, including the scenes where the band members convince him to try the drugs, a scene with the Beatles, the variety show stuff and interviews, all the scenes with the title character smashing the sinks, and the Walk the Line spoofs.
The film is filled with rips and references to movies such as Walk the Line and Ray. Walk Hard does all of this very well, but also has its own brand of humor and jokes that stand on their own.
From the time that the opening scene rolled, I knew that I was in for a treat.Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan show their comedic genius throughout the movie, whether it be through clever dialog between characters or the genuinely funny original songs.
The music performed by Dewey Cox does a great job of parodying various styles, from Dylan to Brian Wilson.John C.
In addition, some of the regulars from past Apatow films are also featured, but I don't want to ruin any surprises here.All in all, Walk Hard is a really solid comedy and a must see for any Apatow fans.
I would say one of the funniest references to "Ray" was Dewey Cox losing his sense of smell.Initially it looked like the movie would be very cheesy with punchlines being telegraphed well ahead of time.
It was dry, slow, gratuitous, and unlike other parodies, was sorely lacking in biting wit or cleverness.20 minutes into the movie, I thought to myself, "alright, it's got to start getting better, soon...they're running out of time." It didn't.
Spoof of every music biography you can think of with John C Reilly in the lead a Dewey Cox, a Johnny Cash style singer.
"Walk Hard" is another film from the Judd Apatow gang who brought you such inane gems as "Anchorman", "Talladega Nights", "40-Year-Old Virgin" and so on.
Other actors from SNL, The Office and Big Bang Theory add to the star-spotting extravaganza.The story is mostly a shameless mock-up of Johnny Cash's biopic "Walk the Line" but with scenes parodied from other musical biopics like "Ray" and "La Bamba".
A goofily predictable rise to fame of a music star story, this film mercilessly skewers the clichés, with over-the-top melodramatic scenes like the bigwig producer telling Dewey he sucks and will never make it, only to start singing his praises after Dewey strums 2 chords.
"Walk Hard" is an enjoyable experience but probably not intended to be a cult classic music comedy like the aforementioned Guest films which spawned an entire genre of sophisticated comedy (if you can consider a film called "A Mighty Wind" to be sophisticated).
He takes advantage of this role as he shows the funny side of doing an imitation of music biopics such as Walk the Line, Ray, and I'm Not There.In a weird way, it is interesting to see a comedy version of a music biopic.
Walk Hard has an ample amount of jokes in it but the great mix of stupid laugh out loud moments you would see in any Will Ferrell movie and the ironic, clever or well throughout jokes makes this film so appealing that it will keep your eyes glued to the screen.
John C Reily is fantastic in it and shows how much of a versatile actor he is, the music is great and the vast amount of cameos you get to see in the movie are brilliant.
If you are looking for a good comedy in recent time, I would strongly recommend Walk Hard.
This movie is a musical comedy which just simply tells about the life story of a fictional singer (Dewey Cox) who gains all his fame and fortune, yet simultaneously messes up his life by abusing drugs.
This movie is about a fictional musician named Dewey Cox. It sort of follows recent films like the ones about Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.
I'm thinking I just might buy the soundtrack.At different points you can see bits and pieces of 'Ray', 'Walk the Line' (of course), 'What's Love Got to Do With It', 'The Doors', every rock n' roll movie you can think of.
Prior to attending a showing of "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" I consulted the IMDb as I always do to see what other viewers thought of the movie.
Gotta admit, seeing that it got Golden Globe nominations helped me to believe it would less crude and sophomoric than the others.We walked out of the theater still laughing, both believing this might be the best parody movie since "Naked Gun".
Jokes that aren't even that funny to begin with, such as a jackass father repeating "the wrong kid died!" or Dewey tearing sinks out of the wall in his fits of rage, managed to recur throughout the film and made me sigh in disappointment.If you've seen Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory, or any VH1 Rock Documentary, then you've seen this movie.
"...and remember it doesn't say Cox, unless I say it tastes like Cox." This is an example of prime send-up, a parody that lovingly references everything in rock-music-bio-pics, from (the obvious centerpiece) Walk the Line, Ray, Don't Look Back, Elvis flicks, The Doors, and countless others, including a mention to Yellow Submarine and the eras of Motown, rockabilly, even punk (yes, more than a decade before there is punk a version of Walk Hard is played).
It follows the tradition of the ZAZ team (Airplane and Naked Gun) by delivering a joke or gag or just something weird every other second, and it builds up into one of the funniest movies in years.A friend of mine said recently that it takes someone to actually really like and admire what they're spoofing in order for it to be pulled off.
It's not simply about mashing up pop-culture references to make them stick, there has to be just something that clicks through the writing and acting.Walk Hard has that in spades- from the opening jokes (yes jokes, and they're running ones) about Dewey slicing his brother in half with a machete (with the brother still giving words of advice cut in half, and leading up to the also running gag "The wrong kid died!" line), going into playing the blues as a little white kid, to being 14 (and played by Reilly, of course) marrying a 12 year old fan, to the sudden bolts of inspiration for songs in the middle of a scene- not to mention the lyrics- it's already apparent this will be good stuff.
One of the superb character actors of his generation (yes, I'm sounding like a pompously sounding critic for now), he's fantastic as Dewey Cox, giving him a sensibility that goes past simple parody- we actually end up feeling for this drug-addicted adulterer who goes in and out of rehab and finally settles in with his few dozen children of various mixed ethnicities (the catching montage, by the way, is priceless).
Reilly also has the backup, acting-wise, of people from SNL (Meadows and Parnell), The Office (Fischer and Ed Helms) and of course past Apatow works (Rudd, Black, Long and Schwartzman give a movie-stealing scene as the Beatles in India).
As a fan of Will Ferrell-style comedy (and I've loved Reilly in other movies), as well as a fan of the Johnny Cash and Ray Charles biopics, I thought mixing the two couldn't go wrong.
There is that good old tasteless humor characteristic of Apatow films that could keep even the casual moviegoer laughing, but really what we have is a very studied recreation of the biopic that shakes a stick at trends we've seen but may not have noticed were trends.Dewey Cox goes through the phases of, essentially, every major music star between the '50s and the '70s.
What this really is, is a work of genius, a biopic that is really only necessarily funny because you know Dewey Cox did not really exist.Perhaps the tasteless and obvious jokes are not enough to give this movie the longevity it might deserve, but the perfection it attains in satirizing the biopic should.
That and not to a release a film like this at Christmas time."Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" stars John C.
The amount of familiar faces makes the film seem incredibly over-produced and some of the shortest scenes appear to have an unnecessary amount of money put into them.The film does have more humor in many respects than "Talladega Nights," but by no means comes close to matching up with "Knocked Up" and "Superbad." While those two films are somewhat more poignant and true-to-life, "Walk Hard" relies excessively on ridiculousness to be funny, more so than any of the Apatow predecessors.In short, "Walk Hard" is funny and at times clever, but mostly just over-the-top and dumb.
You could even go so far as to say it's our generation's "This Is Spinal Tap" in that a lot of people who originally saw it didn't get the joke at first.It's not just of the Johnny Cash biopic "Walk The Line", which it does parody heavily, but every biopic ever made.
"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" made me laugh out loud.
Reilly stars as Dewey Cox in a spoof on music biopics.
This isn't Apatow's worst written film (see Celtic Pride or Fun with Dick & Jane for examples of those), but it's still a step down from his more accomplished funnier ones (Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin) Walk Hard limps especially in the extended cut.
This film is a spot-on parody of every cliché-infested fake country music bio you have ever seen (despite the great performances) from "Coal Miner's Daughter" to "I Walk the Line" - which I remember hating for all the things it was not, mainly truthful and meaningful.
So much attention has been paid to the writing, the performance and the arrangements of the songs, in fact, in this film, that (1) it should have won Oscars for everyone involved, (2) this is the best original musical in a long time besides being a very good comedy and (3) the DVD has something like three hours of extras, deleted scenes unused songs and jokes, on top of the longer 2 hour version, all memorable and funny.
If you haven't seen "Walk The Line", "Ray", or get old classic music like The Beatles or Bob Dylan, you will be clueless at some parts.Reily plays Dewey Cox, who is guilty of cutting his successful brother in half.
Reilly is an amazing actor and great in every movie but "Walk Hard" is our absolute favorite.
Although I thought walk the line was a good movie, I couldn't help not liking this film.
Walk Hard traces the life of Dewey Cox, an infamous musician you've never heard of, from his boyhood in Alabama and his last days as a major music celebrity.This is a role the vastly underrated John C.
Walk Hard: The Story of Dewey Cox. Spoof movies have been around for as long as the art form of film has been entertaining people.
Making a huge splash with his first single, Walk Hard, Dewey goes on the road and we follow him through the ups and downs, the relationships, the drugs, and the destroying of multiple public and private bathrooms.Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow do a great job of making this movie feel like a real biopic and not just a series of skits formed together to make a movie.
While funny, the movie never feels as though it's making fun of the people presented in the biopics it's skewering like Johnny Cash or Ray Charles.
Not only do I think The Dewey Cox story is the best parody ever; I would have to say it could possibly be the funniest movie I have ever seen.
Reilly, to put it bluntly, SUCKS as a comedic actor and has no timing whatsoever.To sell a feeble attempt for a movie such as Walk Hard to a fickle public, you need a guy like Carrell or Jim Carrey to anchor it.
Reilly), showcasing the changes in his music as each decade passes, and the struggles he faces as a musician.Just when we figured we had enough of the typical singer bio-pic, co-writer/producer/comedy golden boy Judd Apatow has delivered yet another one, albeit his first real straight on parody since he first struck gold with The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
If this role does not spring board Reilly into more leading actor work, it just may give him the needed boost to be a singer (or at least, to do more musicals or head to Broadway).The supporting cast, although not nearly as funny as Reilly, all lend a hand in making Walk Hard a very funny movie.
It also helps that it seems like everyone has some sort of minuscule amount of chemistry with Reilly, allowing their jokes to fly very easily.Despite its faults, Walk Hard is a solid addition to the growing canon of Apatow comedies, and is one hell of a funny parody.
The film had fantastic pedigree; it's co-written by Judd Apatow, the man behind such hilarious comedies as"Knocked Up" and "Superbad"; it stars perennial sidekick John C.
It is basically making fun of a movie like 'Walk the Line' which tries to tell the serious story of a musician who went through tough times.
I had a hard time with this movie BECAUSE of that fact - I really liked Walk The Line and this made too much light of it.
well, anyone.John C Reilly has become truly capable of riding shotgun but with this film on his back it proves to have no legs straight out of the gate.It seems many of the movie-going flock has painted this as a Walk The Line/Johnny Cash spoof.
Film Review: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Starring: John C.
I don't ever hear anyone talk about this movie but it's actually a pretty great parody of "Walk the Line".
Walk Hard has some very funny moments, but this film would be nothing without John C.