Crazy Heart - Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson Dec 18, 2009, 17:26 GMT

Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who\'s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. ...more

Charles Bukowski morphs into Dewey Cox in this denunciation of the evils of paralyzing drunkenness

It was announced last Tuesday that four time Oscar nominee Jeff Bridges has copped a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for his work in first time director Scott Cooper’s latest comedy/drama “Crazy Heart.”  Bridges plays bad Blake, the country singer with a heart full of soul and a belly full of Jack Daniels.  Trying to destroy himself with drink before the public forgets about him entirely, Blake has the peddle to the metal on a dead end road when he runs into the one person who just might turn him around.

Have we seen this before?  Rather, have we seen this before more than a thousand times?  Yes we have, but Jeff Bridges does a pretty good job at putting a new face on a very old character stereotype.  On the other hand this is the second film about the marginal redemption of washed up old men after his recent “The Men Who Stare at Goats” with George Clooney.  It would be a pity if he made this kind of maudlin self image a habit.

The person who enters his life and turns him around is one Jean Craddock played with grace and style by Maggie Gyllenhaal.  Her performance in this film is consistent with her previous work that garnered her two Golden Globes, “SherryBaby’ in 2006 and “Secretary” in 2002.  On the other hand she doesn’t have a lot to do.  She plays the understanding, stunningly beautiful girl next door who falls in love with the purified alcoholic old enough to be her father.  What else is new?  After she summoned up the courage to go through with the character the acting must have been simple.

Colin Farrell has a small but well played part as Tommy Sweet, the successful country rock star who was once Blake’s protégé.  Sweet has passed up Blake on the road to success because Blake is a drunken incompetent slob and Sweet is a rational person.  So if viewers know any drunken incompetent slobs who are losing out to rational persons this would be a good film to recommend.

The Jeff Bridges fans out there will se him whenever they can.  Few of us will forget him in the “The Big Lebowski” which continues to show up on the “best performances” lists and will for years to come.  Having said that, this film is no Lebowski.  The character of Bad Blake is supposed to embody the soul and pathos of Matt Dillon’s Henry Chinaski (“Factotum,” 2005) which channels the drunken legend Charles Bukowski, the gold standard of the modern American who truly, deeply and sincerely does not give a shit.  Unfortunately, we can’t get the memory of John C. Reilly in “Walk Hard” out of our minds and Dewey Cox keeps creeping in where Bukowski is supposed to be.

So far there are only two good drunk performances in film, Lemmon in “Days of Wine and Roses” and Milland in “Lost Weekend.”  The key is the sense of dirty secrecy about the addiction; it is not necessary for the actor to vomit onto the camera.  Whether it’s the screenplay, the direction, or the fact that Jeff Bridges is just too cool a guy, this film doesn’t pull it off.  The result is a flick about a reforming alcoholic instead of a film about a person.

As hard as one tries to get into the chemistry between Maggie Gyllenhaal and Bridges, it isn’t there.  There is nothing in the screenplay to support a knockout like her going for a guy like him.  Great to see Robert Duvall again but he is wasted in this film; seeing him just makes one want to rent “Great Santini” or “Lonesome Dove” again.  There is no such thing as a bad Jeff Bridges movie, but this is not his shining hour.

Directed by: Scott Cooper
Written by: Scott Cooper (screenplay) Thomas Cobb (novel)

Starring: Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal

Release: December 16, 2009
MPAA: Rated R for language and brief sexuality
Runtime: 111 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color