Crazy Heart (2009)

Directed by: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeff Bridges

**1/2

Crazy Heart has a lot of problems, all of which result in a pretty mediocre movie, non of which include the performance of Jeff Bridges as the aging, alcoholic country music legend Bad Blake. Sometimes its frustrating when a performance is wasted on movie that isn't good enough to support it. Crazy Heart isn't quite at the point where it can't support Bridges, but it does have a problem where as good as his performance is, it becomes routine.

Aside from the performance of Bridges, one of the remaining qualities this film possesses is its consistency. The ebb and flow of this film is never altered and by maintaining that mood and feel, its very easy to stay involved, even when the movie does drag along. We open on Bad Blake, the one time star as he enters a bowling alley for a concert. This doesn't exactly suggest that Bad is still on the top of his game but he does still have fans, some of whom still find sex appeal beneath the scruffyness, the weight and the stink of MacClures on his breath. And while so many of these fans have journeyed through the ups and downs of Bad's career, our journey with him begins here and we hardly leave his side for the remainder of the film.

This would be a pleasent journey had it not been for his company. Sitting back and watching Bridges during this movie was a pleasure. He was perfect. Even as the film dragged and his performance seemed to become repetitive, it was still perfect. The repetition was accurate. His routine was alcoholism. Just because the way the film progressed didn't completely keep my interest doesn't mean Bridges did anything wrong by staying true to the material. What makes Bridges performance even more perfect is how difficult it must have been to play off of Maggie Gyllenhaal's deadpan, boring, slouched shoulder, bad kind of repetative performance. Gyllenhaal is an actress who I used to like but the more I watch the more I'm convinced she's more of a Scarlett Johansson type who was good in a movie, now tries to do the same thing everytime. What's worse is that Gyllenhaal was stuck playing what could be the most non-believable love interest in movie history. I'm not sure if it was the age difference or the very non-descript way the relationship began but from start to finish, I never bought into Bad Blake and Jean. With the two of them making up, not only the majority of the screen time, but the majority of the conflict (which most of the time was just figuring out when they'd see each other next) it made the movie very difficult to get behind.

In other scenes, Bridges was paired up with Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell in scenes that I wished there could have been more of. These scenes presented conflicts that were never followed up on. In Bad's first interview with Jean he repeatedly insists he doesn't want to talk about Tommy Sweet (Farrell), his one time partner who's now gone onto great success. Farrell plays Sweet perfectly. He's not perfect or even that great in the film as an actor but I blame that on having very little to work with. Either way, it was refreshing to see that Sweet's success hasn't gone to his head and he hasn't forgotten about who helped him get there. He tries to be helpful to Bad but at the same time he's not patronizing. Its a good blend, that really makes you want to know more about where the two of them began and when and where they split off. Duvall's character brings out the more personal side of Bad. The alcoholism he struggles with is the major concern but only by extension of the old time friend caring about Bad's well-being.

Crazy Heart is very personal story so it's almost appropriate that there aren't glaring conflicts that force Bad to go beyond all odds. That's not what the story is about. Its a journey about life's struggles, dealing with what comes one's way and then facing the consequences of how one dealt with them. Bad doesn't drink because he's sad or wants to kill himself. He drinks because one day he started small and it escalated. There doesn't have to be a reason, partly because we pick up the story when Bad's already an alcoholic, but mostly because Bridges convinces us that he is one. The best thing this movie had going for it is Bridges performance which works because its so great, but also because it really is about the life of Bad Blake. Granted, its only about a small part of his life, but that's what its about. Yes, there is a beginning, middle and an end of the movie, but we don't see the beginning of his life, or the end. All we did was join him during part of his life, something that was made real by Bridges, something that was distracting every time Gyllenhaal was on screen but something that was consistent. Its a great performance within an okay movie but I don't doubt that it did everything that it set out to do.