Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

*** Stars

A spoof on Walk the Line from the guys who brought you Knocked Up, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, and Superbad? These are some of the best comedies this decade, so does Walk Hard join them? Well not quite, but it's still worth a look.

Dewey Cox is played by John C. Reilly, who has been in so many supporting roles in the past few years that he finally gets a showcase role to prove that he can be totally hilarious. To understand the jokes, you're going to have to see the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, otherwise you may be scratching your head at some of the humor, including a bit about chopping his brother in half with a machete. After that very brutal but very silly death of his brother, Cox wants to honor his brother by becoming a musician. When his song Walk Hard hits #1, Cox becomes famous and drugs and screwing women become the status-quo of his life. He ends up having 22 kids and 14 stepkids (some are of other races including one named Dewey-Raheem) and takes every drug a man could possibly take. Throughout his struggles, his heart is set on his backup singer Darlene, who he tries to woo for the entire movie. During his PCP tripping days, Cox travels with the Beatles to take drugs with them. The Beatles spoof has Paul Rudd as John Lennon, Jack Black as Paul McCartney, Justin Long as George Harrison, and Jason Schwartzman as Ringo Starr. This is one of the funniest scenes of the year and it is almost worth the price of admission.

John C. Reilly finally gets a roll he can dive into and does deserve the Golden Globe nomination he received this year. It is such a tough genre to pull off and Walk Hard manages to hit the high notes of other successful spoofs like Mel Brook's Spaceballs and manages to rise way above the garbage of the Epic and Date Movie films. At 100 minutes, there are many jokes that are hit-and-miss and some of the songs are a bit of a drag, but there is still plenty here to enjoy if you like these kind of movies. If they're done right, I'm one of them.