Crazy Heart - Review

Jeff Bridges displays great talent while singing and performing great country music crafted by T-Bone Burnett. Crazy Heart is an adequate film about an alcoholic musician struggling to rediscover his gift for writing music.

Jeff Bridges is Bad Blake, a country musician at the end of his career playing bowling alleys and small town bars. Bad Blake is looking for one last moment in the sun but is unable to write a hit song or stop his drinking. At a tour stop he meets single mother Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and they connect over music and a romance blossoms. It is partly because of their romance that Bad Blake reaches out to his former protege Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) to perform some opening gigs and write some new songs. Until meeting Jean, Blake was unwilling to meet Sweet or even discuss the success of his protege while his career was coming undone.

The two fall in love, Blake becomes a hit with her son and the only thing standing in their way is Blake's drinking as Jean is afraid to make the same mistakes she has made in her past. Though it may be unclear what mistakes have been made, she is very weary of Blakes drinking. Then during a trip to see Bad Blake in Houston where Jean allows Blake to watch her son for an afternoon and due to his alcoholism (?) he loses the young boy at a mall. Jean is upset and decides to never see Blake again, understandably so. After feeling down and out, Blake calls up his friend Wayne (Robert Duvall - also one of the film's producers) and decides to go to rehab. Blake cleans up his act and starts writing hit country songs for Tommy Sweet but unfortunately never regains the love of the woman who brought him out of his drunken darkness.

So the film might read like a country song. Drunk country star finds love, his talent and peace through love. Crazy Heart isn't new ground. The Wrestler (2008) was one of the last films to portray a former star in their profession struggling with the end of their career and personal misdirection only to find some hope through romantic encounters with a younger woman. Crazy Heart is a more positive film than The Wrestler but both films have powerful performances by their stars. Crazy Heart might not be original, shocking or even that clever but it has a great performance by Bridges. The film is not completely removed from reality too. Many great country musicians of the past have resurrected their career in recent memory like Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Loretta Lynn. Therefore it is not hard to believe that a country great can come from obscurity to reclaim the talent that made them great so long ago. It is also not hard to believe that there is a connection between drug abuse and country music; Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings all have associations with drugs use and/or abuse.

Bridges knows that he has never received the same respect as other talented actors. Even though at times, in the eyes of this reviewer, Bridges has often over acted in many of his roles. Despite his lack of recognition he has still had many great performances throughout his 50 years of acting on television and the big screen. While many honor him in the Big Lebowski as the Dude, his performances in such films like the Last Picture Show, The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Fisher King should be used as reliable sources for his talent. He brings a great deal of subtly to this role without relying on gestures or breaks in his speech to define the character. He embodies the great southern charm that his character Blake is known to have. Bridges is also not bad singer, being able to bring T-Bone Burnett's music to life.

Crazy Heart spends a fair amount of time focussing on the issue of alcoholism. For the first part of the film it might be easy to dismiss Bad Blake's drinking as basic part of the music or country music culture. It becomes clear that his addiction is a problem when his drinking and driving causes a car accident. At the hospital he consults with the doctor and the doctor tells him that dismissing his problems with jokes and a devil may care attitude will only bring him closer to his death. After losing Jean's son and her affection, he goes into rehab. Alcohol and the problems of addiction play a large role in the film, as big as romance or the music itself. Other than Blakes constant drinking, Jean seems to have a past involving drinking, Blake's best friend who takes him to rehab owns a bar and knows the troubles of getting sober. At a gig with Sweet, Blake asks Tommy why he is drinking tea instead of whiskey. To deny the role that drinking/alcohol play in the film is to deny the central theme of recovery.

Despite powerful performances and good music there is nothing that stands out in this film. Plus everything in the film moves so quickly that nothing has a big impact. It takes a moment of screen time for Blake and Jean to fall in and out of love. It takes a moment of screen time for Blake to stop drinking, enter rehab and come out clean. It might be hard for the viewer to really appreciate the difficulty it can be for some to recover from substance addiction. A lot of things go unsaid like why Blake has such a difficult time going to work for Sweet. The storyline in which Blake tries to reconnect with the son he abandoned takes too much time and is underdeveloped.

Crazy Heart has great music and great performances but Bridges, Farrell and Duval. Taking place in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico with such beautiful landscapes, director Scott Cooper effortlessly connect the music with the open landscapes of the southwest. T-Bone Burnett's selection of covers and well crafter originals add to his legacy of making great movie soundtracks that include O Brother Where Art Thou and Walk the Line. With all that in mind, the film goes little to nowhere without Bridges.

The Book of Eli - Review

Denzel Washington in post-apocalyptic action adventure is (kind of) entertaining as long as you can suspend disbelief and ignore logic or reason.

The film is set in the not too distant future, in the wasteland that has become the United States. A traveler, Washington's Eli is walking west. Why? Because he carries a package and that must be delivered. The earth as we know it is no more. A war has destroyed landscapes, wild life and resources. Everything is in limited supply. Things are in such limited supply one can barter with KFC hand wipes.

Along the way Eli has to overcome traps and cannibals. He arrives at a town run by Carnegie (Gary Oldman) and his gang. In a time when few can read because of a war in which books were burned, Carnegie searches for one book that he can use to run his town and possibly the world? He is searching for the Bible. We come to learn that every Bible ever created has been burned except the one which is in the possession of Eli. Eli and Carnegie have some fights and shoot outs that are part western and part Mad Max. With divine guidance and strong convictions , Eli goes West to San Francisco where a small community is trying to rebuild society through intellectual thought and science. This group take the bible and with a newly constructed printing press they copy it along with other important pieces of literature and thought.

The Book of Eli is the first film directed by the Hughes brothers in almost 10 years. Albert and Allen Hughes have only made a few films since there breakout debut, Menace II Society in 1993. I am not really sure if this method helps them or hurts them. Eli has some decent action sequences, a downplayed performance by Washington and a positive religious message that is not offensive. The film is smart enough to suggest the power the bible and it's message can have while being used for good or evil. Unfortunately the film is not smart enough to build on it's backdrop, characters or plot lines.

For example, the film is set up on the principle that Eli has been walking with the Bible for 30 years trying to get west. It is 2905 miles from New York City to San Francisco. You understand that food or shelter is not easily accessible but with that amount of time to travel, Eli would only have to walk 1/3 of a mile per day to reach the west coast. With a questionable ending, one also wonders whether or not Eli is able to see? The viewer never really knows about the war that brought upon such destruction - nuclear war? You don't know why all books or sources of knowledge were burned - religious war? If so, who won? With limited resources and little to no civilization in sight, how are people still using motorcycles or cars? The list could go on.

If you are curious for information or come into this film questioning why things are they way they are then you will leave unsatisfied. If you can suspend disbelief long enough to ignore the giants wholes or gaps in the script then you might have a good time. Washington is relatively subdued as the traveler on a spiritual mission. He brings a certain humility to the character that makes his performance somewhat stand out. Oldman performance is a bit strange as it seems like he is trying to do his best impersonation of Jack Nicholson. At two hours long, it does get bogged down in the middle and addition of the Mila Kunis character Solara turns a somewhat predictable film into a more very predictable film. At least the Hughes brothers have enough class to resist the temptation to turn Kunis into a sex object. Sorry movie goers but there are no shower scenes, bikini shots or even any romantic twist between Washington and Kunis. Thank goodness. And even in post apocalyptic films there is still plenty of room for product placement.

The Book of Eli is bound to land itself on the "there is nothing else to watch on cable" guilty pleasures list. It's not horrible but it's not very good. It's a film with a religious theme that is not overtly offensive which can be a difficult trick to pass. A good idea that goes under the file - underdeveloped.