Crazy Heart

I put off writing this review for so long because I honestly don't know what I want to say. We saw this a day after Jeff Bridges won his Oscar for his performance. We'd been wanting to see it for several weeks earlier but didn't get there. Now we had an even better reason to go.

The only problem is... this wasn't an Academy Award winning performance. Far from it.

The only thing I can say is this award was given to Jeff Bridges as a sort of cumulative thing - for his life long acting, and more importantly for his whole family of actors. I know how political Hollywood is and how many many things influence these awards, so it makes plenty of sense that the 'other things' were the reason for the award. It absolutely was not because of this performance.

This movie is about a washed up, down and out country singer. If you saw 'The Wrestler' with Mickey Rourke as the down and out washed up wrestler, then you saw this movie already. Only Mickey Rourke did a MUCH better job and his script was better and the whole movie was better.

Jeff Bridges comes off only as a jerk with no redeemable qualities, frankly. Mickey Rourke was a much more sympathetic character, with a heart, and with reasons for how he lives his life. Bridges - no. Just a slobbering irresponsible drunk.

If you like country music (we don't) you may enjoy this. The songs are good imitations of real hit songs, they sound about right and are pleasant enough.

There is one truly shining element to the whole movie - worth watching but not worth the price of admission alone - and that's Robert Duvall. The man is a genius and upstages Bridges in every scene they share. Even when he's standing totally silent he's a better actor on any day of the week. I think I'd pay to listen to him read the phone book.

All in all our curiosity got satisfied and we passed some time and we got to see Robert Duvall. Pueblo Tinseltown was the place - the folks were friendly and the popcorn was fresh and hot so it was a decent time at the movies.

This one gets a '2'.