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Blu-ray Review: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Walk hard down life’s rocky road with the brilliant John C Reilly as Dewey Cox in this gritty, funny, warts-and-all fictional biopic that parodies the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of great rock artists of the 60s and 70s.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story captures and lampoons the spirit of rock history by following the roller coaster career of Dewey Cox from a down home-country boy to a successful artist to a drugged up burnt out rocker struggling to keep his sanity.

With skill and hilarity, John C Reilly caricatures the lives and musical styles of famous rock artists like Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison, and Bob Dylan. Dewey’s crazy life is also dogged by the dreadful lurking paranoia that his father doesn’t love him because of something horrific but accidental that Dewey did as a child.

So often parodies are over stuffed with clichés and all too obvious homages to original histories or story lines. Walk Hard, however, is so competently written, directed and performed that you are left with a smile on your face, and the lyrics of well-written bad songs in your head for days.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story has a run time of 96 minutes and is rated 16 (LNS). This Blu-ray release presents the film re-mastered in High Definition (HD). You can choose between two versions of the film — the theatrical version or the “The Unbearably long, self-indulgent Director’s Cut” version (which is 139 minutes long). It also comes with special features including:

  • Audio Commentary — with the director, producers, and actors.
  • Line-o-rama — missed lines and gags.
  • The Music of Walk Hard — talks about the satirical songs written for the movie. Reilly sang all his own songs.
  • The Real Dewey Cox — a mockumentary about the “real” Dewey Cox.
  • Deleted and extended scenes
  • Full song performances

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story was kindly supplied for review by Nelmari Claassens, SterKinekor Home Entertainment Marketing Manager for Sony Pictures. Go to www.bluraydisc.co.za to view the latest Blu-ray news, reviews and competitions featured on SterKinekor Home Entertainment’s newsletter. Sony Pictures can be found on the Web at www.sonypictures.com.

2 replies on “Blu-ray Review: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”

It was an OK movie, nothing special. Of the recent movies that Judd Apatow has produced, Walk Hard is in my opinion, the weakest.

PS: I don’t think Nelmari works as SK anymore.