Crazy Heart

What's the Deal:  Jeff Bridges plays "Bad Blake," a washed up, has-been, alcoholic country music singer who lives paycheck to small paycheck by playing in venues like Bowling Alleys and run-down honky tonks.  He's depressed and performs drunk.  Very drunk.  Like has-to-leave-during-the-middle-of-the-set-to-vomit drunk. 

We also find out that Blake's former band member Tommy Sweet (played by a surprisingly un-annoying and un-accented Colin Farrell) has "made it big" and is a huge Country Music Star.  Blake is somewhat jealous of Sweet's success, but also bitter at Sweet's apparent lack of gratitude to Blake for Blake giving him his start. 

While performing in Santa Fe, NM, he meets a reporter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) for an interview.  He falls for her and they begin dating.  Bad Blake's wrestling with this relationship, his alcoholism, his jealousy of Tommy Sweet, and his need for money make up the balance of the movie.  It is a really powerful story with great music, great images, a great story, and some really tense moments.  I highly recommend it. 

What I like:

1.  Soundtrack:   I like Country Music, so its no surprise that I found this soundtrack great.  I liked the songs that Bad Blake plays, and intend to download them shortly.  But what I really enjoyed were the backgrounds songs played during various montages and things.  Two of them, "If I needed you" by Townes van Zandt and "Live Forever" Billy Joe Shaver are fabulous songs that I have loved for many years.  It was especially cool to hear them in this movie. 

(Trivia... The lyrics of "Live Forever" are quoted by Robert Duvall in the movie, who has a small supporting role.  "Live Forever" was written by an old rough-around-the-edges singer named Billy Joe Shaver.  Mr. Shaver was accused last year of shooting a man in a bar here in the Waco area.  At his recent trial, Robert Duvall came to town to testify on Mr. Shaver's behalf as a character witness.  Mr. Shaver was subsequently acquitted, in part because no Waco jury is going to disobey Gus from Lonesome Dove.)

Billy Joe Shaver

2.  Jeff Bridges.  A lot has been made of his performance (he won the Best Actor Oscar and a bunch of other awards).  It's all well-deserved.

3.  The imagery.  The movie just looks great.  It's shot mostly in the Southwest, which is cool.  But what I really mean here is the way the early "Bad Blake" is portrayed.  When he's dirty and sweaty and drunk or hung over, he looks terrible.  You can almost smell him through the screen. 

4.  It's actually pretty powerful.  Melissa cried.  Just saying. 

What I didn't:

1.  It's a whole lot like Tender mercies. Let's analyze the plot of Crazy Heart compared to the plot of the previously reviewed Tender Mercies with Robert Duvall.

Alcoholic, Washed up Country Music Singer?  check.
Meets a young woman?  check
The woman has just come out of a bad relationship / marriage?  Check
He Falls in love with her?  Check
She has a son he also likes and takes under his wing?  Check
She forces him to wake up and quit drinking?  Check
He tries to revitalize his career?  Check
The Record companies are resistant?  Check
He reconnects with a child from a previous marriage?  Check
All of these occurrences allow him to write a wonderful new hit song that he couldn't have written otherwise?  Check. 

Now, none of this is all that bad.  Tender Mercies is a good movie.  And I happen to have watched it pretty recently, so these similarities are probably more apparent to me right now than they would be otherwise.  It's just something I noticed.