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Created Jan 11, 2010 12:05PM PST • Edited Jan 22, 2021 06:57AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Hard rocking and heart warming, Crazy Heart creates an Outlaw Country icon out of whole cloth, complete with instantly classic songs and Jeff Bridge’s iconic personification. Best Actor worthy? Hell yes.

   Rueful, funny and incisive, this tale of alcoholic rock-bottom and the redeeming power of love plays like a great country song come to life. Canonical yet not cliché, a la The Wrestler, it casts a knowing light on a classic American archetype.

   As with Walk the Line, you don’t need to be a country music fan to enjoy the movie. Appreciation of human foibles and the drama they create is enough to make this a must see.

   T-Bone Burnett produced Crazy Heart with Bridges, Scott Cooper, Robert Duvall and four others. Hell of a team. HELL of a team. Burnett – Bridges calls him Bone – co-wrote the 4 instantly classic songs. Wow.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Jeff Bridges performs for the ages as Bad Blake. From certain angles looking like Kris Kristofferson, himself a Country legend, Bridges’ Blake comes across in song and action as Waylon Cash: a Country Heaven hybrid of Ol’ Waylon’s outlaw swagger and Johnny’s regal spareness. Best Actor? Hell yeah.

   But why stop there? Notwithstanding charismatically iconic roles as The Fisher King and Big Lebowski, this Hollywood scion never gets mentioned in the same breath as the Duvalls and De Niros. Bad Blake proves he should.

   Speaking of Duvall, he waits until about the three-quarters mark before making his entrance, and then delivers a pithy and essential turn, just as he recently did in The Road. Of course his man Wayne is an insta-classic good-ol’-boy, evincing the casual racism and appreciation for quality Country that are intrinsic to Texans of a certain age and pale ethnicity.

   Maggie Gyllenhaal, smart and adorable, delivers one of her best performances yet, even if she comes across less a Country character than a Dylan one: “she aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl.”

   Colin Farrell easily plays a former sideman who’s now a country superstar: impressive acting for an Irishman. As with Bridges, who knew he could sing? Their impromptu duet on Fallin’ & Flyin’ is a treat.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    All hail Scott Cooper, Crazy Heart’s rookie writer, director and producer. Basing his screenplay on Thomas Cobb’s little known 1987 novel of the same name, he nails in word, action and heart the soul of Outlaw Country.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Humorous, loud, heart stopping, tender and true: This is a screenplay of the highest order, never better than when depicting the salutary effects of paternal instincts on self-image, showing how a little Buddy makes for a better Man.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Crazy Heart introduces four songs into the Country canon. The first three are well sung by Lloyd’s Lad himself, the fourth by little known Ryan Bingham.

    • Fallin’ & Flyin’ – “I was going where I shouldn’t go, seeing who I shouldn’t see, doing what I shouldn’t do, being who I shouldn’t be.” And then “It’s funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’ … for a little while.” Wow. Ruefully funny, as only Country can be.
    • Hold On You – “I’ve been loved and I’ve been alone, all my life I’ve been a rolling stone. Done everything that a man can do. Everything gets a hold on you.” The beginnings of a serious moral inventory there.
    • Somebody Else – “I used to be somebody. But now I am somebody else. Who I’ll be tomorrow is anybody’s guess.” Outlaw Country rocks no harder than this badass song, the one most directly about Bad: “Now that I’m a brand new man, you belong to someone else.”
    • The Weary Kind – “Your heart’s on the loose. You rolled them sevens with nothing to lose. This ain’t no place for the weary kind.” And then “Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try.” Touching and powerful lyrics atop beautiful acoustic guitar: classic non-schmaltzy Country.

    The soundtrack, when it comes out next week, will also include more than a handful of older Country classics. Fortunately the four new songs are available now on iTunes for those of us who can’t wait.

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.2

    Bad Blake’s a salty dog who subsists on poison for much of the movie. On a significantly sweeter note, he and Maggie Gyllenhaal share a tenderly erotic love scene.

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    Hard to believe that whiskey, diner food and cigarettes could sustain a real man into his sixties.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.3

23. Biological Glib 1.3

24. Physical Natural 1.0