Crazy Heart

What an affect­ing film. Worth watch­ing twice, trust me. It has an inter­est­ing back­sto­ry, too. Orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed for a direct-to-video release, before Fox Search­light gave it a shot at the­atri­cal release. Hard to believe a movie with Jeff Bridges, Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal, Col­in Far­rell, and Robert Duvall would go direct-to-video. It’s the stuff the movie busi­ness eats up! It’s a music biopic! Remem­ber Walk the Line and Ray?

Bet­ter than either of those movies, Crazy Heart does­n’t bite off more than it can chew. We don’t get Bad Blake’s life sto­ry; rather, we see him in his twi­light years, fall down drunk and at the end of his rope. His songs are proof that he once had a career worth talk­ing about. He’s Hag­gard and Jen­nings and Kristof­fer­son and it’s amaz­ing to watch unrav­el. Shame that Bridges won the Oscar for a com­pos­ite char­ac­ter, but he chan­nels the Out­law ethos so perfectly.

The music’s not half bad either, and I have his­tor­i­cal­ly hat­ed any­thing T‑Bone Bur­nett touches.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.