Review - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a pleasant surprise. Theaters have, for too long, been showing spoofs (and I use the term loosely) such as Meet the Spartans and Date Movie which are not spoofs at all but rather what appear to be collections of rejected MadTV sketches. Walk Hard actually manages to parody the world of musician biopics and be funny while doing so.
John C. Reilly, the most lackluster of the Judd Apatow troupe, steps up to show that he is capable of being the lead as the titular character and is joined by an eclectic group of actors/ actresses comprised of Apatow's regulars and several character actors.
The victims of this spot-on parody are abundant, most obviously Walk the Line, but the audience need not be familiar with these films to enjoy Walk Hard. It is enjoyable in its own right, achieving the perfect meld of penis jokes and parody. In one inspired song, called Let's Duet (amusingly sung as let's do it,]), Cox and his new duet partner (Jenna Fischer) perfectly straddle the barrier between acceptable and not, singing "I'm gonna beat off....all my demons" and "I wanna make out...what you're saying." The song ends with Fischer innocently inviting him to "come in [her] back door." Jokes like this abound in Walk Hard but they are deftly played against more subtle ones such as the repeated joke about Cox having cut his brother in half with a machete, a twist on the story about Johnny Cash's brother, who was almost halved by a chainsaw and died.
The best scene of the film is by far Cox's encounter with the Beatles, played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman. After "dropping acid with the Beatles," Cox embarks on a bad trip and ends up in a frightening cartoon version of the real world. The other cameos in the film are also memorable, both from real musicians playing themselves (The Temptations), and those tackling the memorable artists of the time (Jack White as Elvis).
The music is the bright spot of the picture, not only for its comedic value but also because its genuinely entertaining to listen to. Walk Hard succeeds because it actually does what it says and pokes fun at its intended subject matter, rather than relying on random American Idol and Britney Spears references. Some of its jokes are cheap and most of them are predictable but that doesn't make them any less funny. As a matter of fact, Walk Hard manages to be one of Apatow's funniest movies yet.