PERENNIAL second banana John C. Reilly rocks as a hard-rocking, decades-spanning musical icon in “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” though this biopic parody it self is a more scattershot affair.
I loved both “Walk the Line” and “Ray,” but it will be hard to watch either one with a straight face again after the skewering they get in this Judd Apatow production, which quotes scene after scene to hilarious effect.
Dewey is a good ol’ product of the 1940s South who kills his beloved older brother in a sword-fighting accident – one of many jokes repeated way past the point of diminishing returns – and who suddenly finds himself a rising musical star.
Like Johnny Cash, he’s equipped with a disapproving, ever-pregnant wife (Kristen Wiig) and a father (Raymond J. Barry) who loudly and repeatedly blames him for his brother’s death.
Like Cash and Ray Charles, Dewey is turned onto ever-harder drugs by a bandmate (Tim Meadows) and is lured into bed by a succession of young women (and the occasional man).
There are some wonderful musical parodies here, particularly the classically suggestive duet that Dewey sings with the songbird (Jenna Fischer) who becomes his second wife: “In my dreams you’re blowing me [long pause] . . . some kisses.”
Also hilarious is a sequence featuring Dewey and The Beatles (Jack Black and Paul Rudd in cameos as a battling McCartney and Lennon) in India – complete with an animated LSD trip – and a Dewey sendup of an incoherent, pretentious Bob Dylan tune that makes it hard to take “I’m Not There” seriously as well.
Apatow and his co-screenwriter/director Jake Kasdan (“Orange County”) get all the clichés of the genre right – the portentous dialogue, the name-dropping references, the bad-aging makeup, even the overproduced recording sessions of the late ’60s.
It’s too bad they didn’t trust the audience’s sophistication and padded the flick with gross-out jokes, including repetition of the main character’s surname, many of which are repeated beyond endurance.
And was it really necessary to give Reilly as many underwear scenes as Will Ferrell, whom he supported in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”?
Still, in a season filled with so many feel-bad movies, don’t underestimate the appeal of something as silly as “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.”
WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY ** 1/2Sketchy fun.Running time: 96 minutes. Rated R (sex, nudity, drugs, profanity). At the Empire, the Orpheum, the Chelsea, others.