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Crazy Heart 
Director : Scott Cooper
Studio : 20th Century Fox
by 20th Century Fox
Brand : Fox
Release Date : 2010-04-20
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
EAN : 0024543665892
UPC : 024543665892
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 120 reviews)
List Price : $29.98
Our Price : $9.04
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Product Description |
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An aging dysfunctional country musician finds himself falling in love with a newspaper journalist who wants to write a story about him for her paper. |
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Premier-shopping.com |
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In a career filled with unforced, naturalistic performances, Jeff Bridges gives one of his finest in Crazy Heart. His oft-married, booze-soaked troubadour Bad Blake has just rolled into Santa Fe when he meets Maggie Gyllenhaal's journalist Jean. "Where do all the songs come from?" she asks during their initial encounter. "Life, unfortunately," he sighs. Against Jean's better judgment, her fling with Blake blooms into a full-fledged relationship. Between gigs, Blake hangs out with the divorcée and her 4-year-old son, with whom he establishes an instant rapport, possibly because the musician is just an overgrown kid himself (and also because he hasn't seen his own boy in years). While Blake plays juke joints, his protégé, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell, cast against type to fine effect), plays stadiums, but just when director Scott Cooper's debut seems to be going down the same path as A Star Is Born, Sweet offers his mentor an opportunity that could revive his reputation--at the expense of his still-healthy ego. Between Jean and Tommy, things start looking up for Blake until a critical error puts his stab at redemption in jeopardy. Once Robert Duvall enters the scene as Blake's favorite bartender, it's clear that Cooper has Tender Mercies in his sights, but Crazy Heart, which features music by T-Bone Burnett and rough-hewn singing by its Golden Globe-winning star, plays more like a sincere cover version than a strikingly original composition. Still, like Duvall's in Tender Mercies, Bridges's performance is Oscar-worthy. --Kathleen C. Fennessy |
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Mumbling towards ecstasy |
Be prepared to either keep the subtitles on or crank the volume to 50 as Bad Blake requires frequent translation and or amplification. Bridges is indeed fantastic as Bad though unfortunately this is not good enough to rescue a self-consciously-formulaic product that believes itself to be compelling art. There are some honest notes--a couple good songs though several of them have hooks too close to well-known hits. If you're in the mood for a down and almost out former star against the odds movie then I must give the edge to 'The Wrestler'.
And with zero special features it's a bit hard to recommend anything other than a rental or borrow. |
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bad is GOOD, poe-ple!! |
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For those who think why Maggie G would let a alcoholic in charge of a kid, rmember that not all alcoholics are the same. This isnt Leaving Las Vegas!! Bad Blake is a highly functioning alcoholic, whoc an drink, but still exist in society, like Ted Kennedy or Temple Grandin. |
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"...The Good Ones Feel Like They've Always Been There..." |
As every film lover knows, Jeff Bridges has been putting in great performances for years - but "Crazy Heart" is different. Quietly magnificent throughout the entire movie, he owns the Oscar on this one.
"Bad Blake" is a 57-year old country singer, drunk most of the time and shuffling with a cigarette in his gob towards another small time venue he doesn't care about. As he empties a plastic carton of piss into the parking lot of a bowling alley (having been on the road for hours), he can think about only one thing - not family, not music, not love - but how can he get a bottle of McClure's Whiskey into his liver with only $10 left in his jeans?
Without any new material to make money from, wifeless for the 4th time and with deteriorating health, "Bad" is still a legend among his fans and when he's on stage, him and his beloved songs like "I Don't Know" can still cut it. But the younger bucks have replaced him - especially his despised protégé Tommy Sweet (a brilliantly cast Colin Farrell) who now has 3 huge articulated trucks to haul his equipment from one arena to the next and not a beat-up convertible called 'Bessie'.
Then "Bad" gets a lucky break. He is interviewed by a local Santa Fe journalist Jean Craddock, a divorced Mum in her Thirties with a bubbly 4-year old son Buddy whom she protects from - you guessed it - 'bad' men. Yet despite all her rules, both Jean and Buddy fall for the charms of the big kid with the guitar and the ten-gallon hat. And on the story goes, heartbreak to joy, joy to heartbreak and back again...
The support cast are convincingly enamored small town folks - Tom Bower as the store manager and Rick Dial as the local band's piano player. Colin Farrell sings amazingly well too and is a perfect foil for the aging singer (he's also superb in "Ondine"). Significant others shimmy around Bad's constant verbal abuse too - Paul Herman as his long-suffering manager Jack Greene and Robert Duvall as the bar-owner who never seems to give up on "Bad" and is maybe his only real friend (Duvall is still such a great actor at 79).
Although this kind of movie harks back to Duvall's own "Tender Mercies", it feels a lot richer in its details. There's a particularly tough scene where Bad decides to finally call his only son of 28. Bad hasn't seen him since he was 4 years of age - never helped him, never been there for him. There are very few words in the scene, but there's a lot of pain. The grown-up son is not surprisingly unforgiving - especially with his Mom having passed away two years earlier. With the receiver to his ear, there is a look on Bridge's face that is pure destruction - a horrible realization that he has caused agony with his cavalier stay-away life and won't easily get forgiveness for it. In the hands of another actor, there might have been histrionic tears when the call abruptly finishes - but Bridges just does what an alcoholic would do - not mend his ways, but look cravenly at the kitchen for a bottle to get lost in. And on it goes until he finally does something really selfish and stupid in a shopping mall with a boy who now looks at him with affection. It's brilliantly realized stuff, it really is.
Niggles - his recovery is too swift and too painless - alcohol abuse over that length of time is never that easy to shake off, and even though she's a magnificent actress, there's a nagging disbelief in the relationship between her character and his - would she really fall for such a car-crash as "Bad Blake". But these are minor points.
"Crazy Heart" (based on the novel by Thomas Cobb) isn't quiet a masterpiece, but its damn close. And while the other actors, the T-Bone Burnette music and Scott Cooper's superb direction all add so much to the film - ultimately it belongs to its leading man. Bridges imbibes it with believability and a soul few actors could even get near.
As Jean asks what is it that makes a great song - Bad answers with the title of this review - "The good ones feel like they've always been there..." You may feel the same about "Crazy Heart".
Put it high on your rental/to buy list. |
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Crazy Heart |
Crazy Heart
Was very good movie. I didn't know Jeff Bridges could sing. |
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Soulful story... |
The figure of the cowboy has long been a favorite of filmakers wanting to portray an outsider, a self-reliant man who finds his own way. In this case it's a country singer who's wound up alone and out of sync with his times. Bad's solution is to crawl inside a bottle and to exist on the lowest rungs of the music business. At a certain point, he begins to feel again, sobers up and reaches for some meaning and authenticity in his life.
What plot there is exists to support this character study and to allow Jeff Bridges to bring his role to full and glorious life. It's a fine performance and it is the reason to see this film. Fine photography and music give texture to the film's world and add to its emotional resonance.
If you've ever listened to Townes Van Zandt or Billie Joe Shaver, or if you have a soft spot for poetic, good-hearted losers, you'll love this movie. |
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