The drunken, down-on-his-luck country singer. Now there's a motion picture cliche. It almost writes its own song.
In "Crazy Heart," Jeff Bridges, in a performance that has best actor Academy Award written all over it, plays Bad Blake, a frayed-at-the-heels loner, who, although middle-aged, dissolute and paunchy, still tries to strum the guitar and tickle his fans, what few of them are left. He's reduced to playing gigs at bowling alleys, not that there's anything wrong with bowling -- there certainly isn't -- but the idea of a once-interesting songwriter competing with gutter bowls is a metaphor too obvious to miss.
Even though Blake has settled for a life of booze and low-rent motels, his manager, played by Buffalo's James Keane, keeps their connection by working hard to find him jobs. After all, a guy's gotta eat. And alcohol, at the level at which Blake consumes it, isn't cheap.
The film is good, but not transcendent. A problem is that it's very familiar territory. It's utterly unsurprising and relatively unoriginal. What the movie has going for it, in a weird way, is its comfort level, and the acting, especially Bridge's acting, which holds your attention throughout. He makes the familiar seem strikingly fresh.
A newspaper reporter named Jean Craddock (an excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal) enters Blake's life. She's fascinated by him and has her sights on a good interview. As expected, she also begins to wonder if he's worthy of romantic pursuit. Can she save him from himself? It's an unwritten rule that journalists do not sleep with their subjects. Or, if they do, then somebody else writes the story. Blake finds her attractive, which she is, and tries to smooth-talk his way into her heart as if he's just an average guy with the ability to come up with corny lines about beauty and makin' a home.
"Crazy Heart," which is written and directed by Scott Cooper from a novel by Thomas Cobb, does let the audience play the "don't you dare" game. As in, "Hey Jean, don't you dare get involved with that has-been. What the heck are you thinking?"
You watch the movie with more than average interest, because Bridges and Gyllenhaal are wonderful together. Also in the film is a believable Colin Farrell as a successful country singer who was a sideman for the once-popular Blake. He tries to help out his old buddy by offering Blake the chance to open for him at concerts in 20,000-seat arenas. Robert Duvall has a small bit as another friend of Blake's. Curiously, Duvall won his own best actor Oscar playing a crusty country crooner in "Tender Mercies."
The music by T-Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton is highly enjoyable.
"Crazy Heart" is a movie about a troubled life. There's the possibility of redemption, but I will keep secret how that plays out.
Bridges will certainly be nominated for a best actor Oscar. During his wonderful and popular career as an actor, he's been nominated for three supporting actor Academy Awards and once for best actor, but he's never won. The supporting chances came in 1972 for "The Last Picture Show," in 1975 for "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," and in 2001 for "The Contender." His best actor chance was in 1985 for "Starman."
The fact that he's able to put a new spin on an old cowboy boot of a character has made Bridges the odds-on favorite to win the Oscar. However, from my vantage point, he will be up against some very strong competition, especially Jeremy Renner from "The Hurt Locker," George Clooney for "Up in the Air," and Colin Firth for "A Single Man." What may tip the scales for Bridges is sentiment for a terrific career.
The phony Rome plays second fiddle to New York, and it looked to me like soundstages in the Big Apple were used to recreate la dolce vita. Kristen Bell is an art curator at the Guggenheim Museum whose sister is getting married in Rome. Bell has a big event coming up at the museum and her grinch of a boss, played by Anjelica Houston, is on her case about not screwing up. Of course, things will get screwed up.
Bell goes to the wedding, promising to be in touch electronically. Needless to say, she can't get a connection on her cell phone, which is absurd because cell phone service in Europe is light years better than it is in the United States. In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's communications company has wired the entire country.
Anyway, after a chain of events too ridiculous to detail, Bell ends up stealing coins (and one casino chip) from a fountain -- not the Trevi -- and ends up being cursed. Although, if you think about it, I guess it's not a bad curse. Five guys fall in love with her. They are an aspiring street magician (Jon Heder), a promising artist (Will Arnett), a successful model (Dax Shepard), a popular sportswriter (Josh Duhamel), and a wealthy guy who calls himself the sausage king. The latter is Danny De Vito, and his lust for Bell comes across as creepy.
Who will win her heart? Come on, have you seen Duhamel? Bell is very pretty, and he's prettier than she is. Even with all the convoluted, ever-changing shenanigans that happen, this rips any surprise or suspense right out of the film.
"When in Rome" falters along with some goofy slapstick, which director Mark Steven Johnson doesn't know how to wring for laughs. The screenplay is by David Diamond and David Weissman. Hopefully, they got to go to Rome for research. But, if they did go, they learned nothing.
I will note that both Duhamel and Bell try their best as the romantic leads and are fun to watch. They deserved a better movie.
He's a Boston detective named Thomas Craven whose daughter works at a mysterious nuclear laboratory. While visiting him, she's gunned down. Who did it? And why? Do you want a clue? The daughter gets nose bleeds during her fatal visit.
Gibson becomes the vengeful overwrought father, with a lot of ultra-violence to follow. The film takes us into the shadowy world of a malevolent corporation run by evil men who whisper a lot. This is a paint-by-numbers action work that offers no surprises and proves that Mel still loves his bloodlust.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | February 2, 2010 |