Dspang's Thoughts on Crazy Heart.

Well..............This wasn't a bad movie but, I just wasn't feeling it. First off with the good. This is an actor movie and the actors were in full bloom. Jeff Bridges was f^)&(%$ awesome as Bad Blake. I bought it all the way. Why isn't Mister Bridges doing more? I was convinced that he was Bad Blake. From the moment he stepped out of "Bessy" and proclaimed his joy to be at the bowling alley, to the times he was falling down drunk. He played up the personality very well. Well played Mister Bridges. Next we have Miss Gyllenhaal. She was positively radiant in her role as Jean. Her shared chemistry with Bad Blake was very genuine. Both of them seem to be weighed down significantly by their emotional demons. I also like that fact that not matter how she looks she looks like a "real" person as opposed to a person dipped in plastic and botox. Also, we have Robert Duvall as his bartender buddy Wayne. The friendship between these two was pretty good and totally unforced. The scene that the two share on the fishing boat was priceless in my opinion. I wanted that scene to last longer. I kind of wish Colin Farell had a little bit more to work with here. The few scenes he had were good and they did a great job of showing the contrast between his style of country versus Blake's but I wanted to know what Blake's beef was with him. It seemed like he was an afterthought.

Now with the not so good. This wasn't a horrible movie in my eyes. It seemed a little derivative of a another movie I've seen. Specifically "Walk the Line." Now I know that one was about Johnny Cash, but the problem I have is that the whole "alcoholic(or drug addicted) worn down life, meet amazing woman, redemption or not" angle seems a little played out. "Leaving Los Vegas" had a similar arc except Nick Cage spiralled. So did Tender Mercies with Robert Duvall himself. So this isn't the first time this has been done.

My other quibble with this movie is the ending. We had a perfect ending with Bad Blake sitting on his porch singing one of his songs that mirror his life and trials. Fade to black. Then they have to flash forward. That didn't seem too necessary at all. It would have been perfect had they just ended with him on his porch. He had a sense of peace and closure on his face that showed we didn't really need to know what happened after.

In conclusion, I thought it was a good movie in the context of the type of movie that it is. Just not great or anything different from the type of movies that preceded it. I'm also glad that Bridges got an award for his role because he owned it. The little Lebowski reference in the beginning was nice too. Intentional or not.