John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Kristen Wiig, Lyle Lovett, Paul Rudd ...( see more  see more... ) , Tim Meadows

Singer Dewey Cox overcomes adversity to become a musical legend.

Flixster Users

55% liked it

283,382 ratings

Critics

74% liked it

137 critics

R, 1 hr. 36 min.

Directed by: Jake Kasdan

Release Date: December 21, 2007

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DVD Release Date: April 8, 2008

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Stats: 15,892 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (15,892)


  • December 15, 2009
    Funny momments but oh so dumb
  • September 8, 2009
    An uneven comedy that manages to be more hit than miss. Walk Hard has the funniest songs since Team America: World Police, but this kind of absurd comedy isn't perfect for everyone. If you don't laugh within the first 5 minutes, then do yourself a favor and turn the movie off. Th...( read more)ere's not going to really be much variation of the basic formula.

    There are lots of guest cameos (The "Beatles") were great, and some pretty darn funny spoofs of biopics. Walk Hatd isn't the cleverest movie, but it gets a lot of laughs at the expense of more serious movies that came before.
  • July 21, 2009
    Walk Hard, like numerous parodies, had the potential to be a funny movie. Somehow, somewhere along the way this became a big miss. It has a few moments of laughter, but mostly chuckles at best. The story feels a little long winded and flat. John C. Riley's best assests are as...( read more) a complementary character and fails to carry a movie on his own. The music in this was surprisingly entertaining as was the scenes with the Beatles. Overall this isn't a very good movie. If you can endure some painful moments, you might be able to pull a little humor out of it.
  • April 27, 2009
    Still great and greatly over looked.

    I loved the fuck out of this movie. A great send up of all the musician themed movies that take themselves too seriously.
  • March 22, 2009
    Fun move, alot of great cameos.
  • December 20, 2009
    the best part of this flick is when they made fun of the beetles haha.
  • December 8, 2009
    Three things about this movie: 1. One of the funniest movies I have seen in recent years. 2.Most likely the best parody. 3.The MOST quotable lines out of anything I have seen in the past few years.
  • December 7, 2009
    Part demented hilarity, part formula ridicule, part immaculate one-lining, even a bit of biting social commentary peppered in there. All overachiever.
  • December 6, 2009
    Walk Hard is a parody of the music biopic, but it suffers from a flaw seemingly inherent in the modern parody genre, it doesn't have many actual jokes.

    Airplane is the great example of a parody done right, before I had seen Airplane I was too young to have really built up a subs...( read more)tantial back catalogue of viewed films, so I had absolutely no experience with the disaster movie and yet the story was all there, it didn't require I remember Airport 1975 or anything like that to understand the beats, and there were precious few jokes that actually required any cursory knowledge of the disaster genre; there were sight gags, slapstick, puns, sex gags, a few pop culture references but lucky for them they were all references to things that would become timeless classics, like Jaws and Saturday Night Fever. There were so many jokes to be found in the movie that you would need to watch it several times to catch them all, and precious few of them required any prior interest in the films it was parodying.

    Walk Hard seems to be a slightly more subtle version of the Epic Movie brand of parody "humour" (though not nearly as insipid and childish), it is a comedy that requires you remember very specific films in order to get the references. It copies Walk The Line and Ray often note for note, taking arbitrary observations about those films and thinking them far smarter than they actually were. Things like finding inspiration for songs by actually saying the title of the song in dialogue, constantly trashing bathroom sinks during dark periods or just basic character hurdles like "We can't do anything because we're not married!", all ideas that they re-use constantly.

    The jokes are often completely reliant on remembering the films they are sending up in order to get them, there are no jokes that work purely on the basis that they are funny.

    If it were not for the fine work of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, I would be completely convinced that the parody was all but dead. Hot Fuzz and Shaun of The Dead both manage to tell an individual story with unique characters that incorporate genre conventions and character archetypes typical to those genres but in an original, humourous manner without caving your skull in with a hammer made out of obviousness!

    That's not to say the movie is completely devoid of laughs, most of the songs are great, "Let's Duet" song is rather obvious and bland but John C Reilly really can knock out a good tune and my personal favourites were his disco-tinged cover of David Bowie's Starman and his Bob Dylan-alike "Royal Jelly" with nonsensical lyrics that nobody understands but they're supposed to be "deep", that got a good laugh out of me and he does a really good Dylan impersonation.

    There are a handful of good lines thrown into scenes, particularly Reilly giving his infant children verbal abuse during the break-up scene, as well as when he verbally abuses his pet chimp with "All you care about is fruit and touching yourself, well fuck you!" and his father telling him he should have spent more time playing catch with Dewey, instead of training his body and mind to kill him in a machete fight.

    The much hyped Beatles scene is a real clunker and the basis for humour is no more in-depth than "Isn't it funny to see American actors do bad Beatles impressions?" but watching Jack White's Elvis Presley bit is like diving head-first into a swimming pool filled with hilarity, with a little bit of chlorine mixed in to prevent bacterial infestation. Jonah Hill was also very entertaining as the adult ghost of Dewey's dead brother.

    There are some good jokes to be found here, but they are lost in meandering drawn out sequences with no more depth than "Hey, remember that movie about that guy? This is exactly like that, only we know it's stupid!" and that just isn't good enough.

    If I wanted to laugh at those movies I would just watch those bloody movies!

    However, I must say that if you do love Jenna Fischer (and who bloody doesn't?)the film is probably worth seeing for her alone, she's never looked better.

    So, not recommended for people who hold Airplane and Top Secret as holy comedy sacrament.

    Strongly recommended for people who like Family Guy, or fapping off to Jenna Fischer.

    And who bloody wouldn't?
  • November 30, 2009
    The sink part was hilarious!

Critic Reviews


January 4, 2008
Claudia Puig, USA Today

Cox rocks. full review

December 21, 2007
Pete Hammond, Maxim

After 'Superbad' and 'Knocked Up', Judd Apatow has now pulled off the movie equivalent of the Triple Crown. full review

December 21, 2007
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Writer-producer Judd Apatow, star John C. Reilly and director Jake Kasdan eviscerate the genre gleefully. full review

December 21, 2007
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Walk Hard is funniest in its first half, when you're not quite sure where it's going, and drags in the second, by which time you realize it's going nowhere. full review

December 21, 2007
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

In a season loaded with serious films about war and loss, there's bound to be an audience out there looking for some undemanding holiday laughs. full review

December 21, 2007
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Instead of sending everything over the top at high energy, like Top Secret or Airplane!, they allow Reilly to more or less actually play the character, so that, against all expectations, some scenes a... full review

December 20, 2007
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Walk Hard is 100 minutes of fun, and for pure, uncomplicated enjoyment, it's the movie to see right now. full review

December 19, 2007
Armond White, The New York Press

Walk Hard is Apatow's undistinguished -- in fact, shamelessly derivative -- contribution to the mockumentary genre. full review

December 16, 2007
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

The film gets some mileage out of mocking fatuous biopic conventions. full review

December 13, 2007
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

The tricky thing about parody movies is that the jokes get old fast and they're hit-and-miss. Walk Hard is guilty on both counts. How lucky that when the jokes do hit, they kick major ass. full review

View more Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments


  • perfectgentlemn
    July 20, 2008
    Ultimate Stupid Funny, Great movie, Woke up laughing a day later, still.... LOL, "Get outta here, You Don't want any part of this..." lol... Oh but you will, Watch this movie, it's Ridiculous. ;-) Enjoy
  • YLOWBSTARDreturns
    June 28, 2008
    I can't believe Jack White was ELVIS! He looked so... ALIVE.
  • TheDemonHunter
    January 14, 2008
    wish that stupid banner would sod off, I like to type/hit buttons without a naked pic of Dewey Cox spinning down into my screen but I can't! Put a decent banner up already and one that doesn't annoy!

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Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Trivia


  • Which actor plays John Lennon in 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story'?  Answer »
  • In the movie Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story, how does Dewey accidentally cut his brother in half?  Answer »
  • Who played Elvis Presley in the 2007 film, Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story?  Answer »
  • Name two of the actors who played The Beatles in Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story.   Answer »

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