Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [Unrated]

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First came a boy named Sue, and now here's a guy named Cox?

"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" is a title so saturated with sexual innuendo that it sounds like a porno film. That innuendo continues throughout the movie, and by way of warning, even in the theatrical release there's more than one "cox." On several occasions, male genitalia are in full view. I expected the unrated version to be much raunchier than the theatrical release, but to tell the truth they both took the sexual punning of the title and ran with it (the Swinging Cox Dancers??).

In fact, some of the film's most hilarious moments come as a result of that innuendo, like the big duet song that's intended (as most of the film) to poke fun of "Walk the Line." In this case it's the song Johnny Cash first sang with June Carter in that film:

Cox: "In my dreams, you're blowin' me . . . some kisses.
Darlene: "That's one of my favorite things to do."
Cox: "You and I could go down . . . in history.
Darlene: "That's what I'm praying' to do with you."

(Then, the beginning of the chorus: "Let's duet . . . in ways that make us feel good . . .")

As a parody, this film takes a great many scenes from "Walk the Line" and really does a good job of milking them for laughs. From "the wrong son died" to an exaggerated scene where Dewey tears a sink off a wall (and keeps doing it), the script goes after the Johnny Cash story with a relentless joy. But even "Ray" and other rock 'n' roll biopics get spoofed, as in a running gag where Dewey keeps getting involved with harder drugs. Written by Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up," "Superbad") and Jake Kasdan (yep, Lawrence's son, who also directs), "Walk Hard" isn't as consistently clever or full of as many laugh-out-loud moments as it could have been, but it's still a lot of fun.

When there is a funny moment, it's often thankfully a sequence rather than a brief gag. Case in point? When Dewey has been working as a janitor at the all-black Leroy's Lounge, the "dirty dancing" is extremely exaggerated to the point where you can't help but giggle. Then, when the lead singer of the band comes down with laryngitis and Dewey gets his big break (in kind of a "Back to the Future" moment), what does he do? He mimics the black man's introduction, complete with accent (on the unrated version, one of the Jewish record industry moguls says, "This is racially insensitive"). Then he launches into "You've Got to Love Your Negro Man" and does it so well that the crowd forgets that a minute ago they were ready to toss his white keester out the door.

John C. Reilly does a great job singing and playing it wide-eyed and innocent as the title character. But for a musician, this Cox doesn't know dick. He's a naïve young man who gets all "Dewey"-eyed whenever he's having a conversation with someone and a song suddenly comes to him. It's that goofball naiveté that drives the film almost as much as the innuendo. A guitar player, Reilly really relishes (say that three times fast) the musical numbers, and does a commendable job.

The rest of the cast seems to have fun too. Jenna Fischer is appropriately perky and sexy as "other woman" Darlene, and her "I want to/I can't" scenes with Reilly are perfectly played. Raymond J. Barry and Margo Martindale are also a riot as Ma and Pa Cox, while Kristen Wiig has a good time with her role as Cox's baby-making, long-suffering wife ("I do believe in you. I just think you're gonna fail").

But you know you're in for a fun time when the film begins with an audience clapping and stomping, waiting for Cox to come out and perform, as we saw in "Walk the Line." And when someone says it's time to go onstage, another person pokes fun of the Cash film flashback framework by saying, "You'll have to give him a moment. Mr. Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays." "Walk Hard" covers the same ground, with the unsupportive wife, the stiffing home life, the band trying to impress a record studio mogul and cut a record, the tours with other stars, the adoring fans and boozing and partying, the budding romance with Darlene/June, the fall from grace, and the eventual comeback and redemption.

Long sections involving Dewey's interaction with the Beatles'--played here by Jack Black, Justin Long, Paul Rudd, and Jason Schwartzman, and parodying the psychedelic phase many musicians went through--seems overly long, and that's not helped by inserting even more of those scenes in the expanded version (which runs 120 minutes, compared to the theatrical release's 96). It's as if once Apatow and Kasdan got started, everything about the music business seemed ripe for the parodying.

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