A Line Best Not Walked
by Alex Anderson

Walking a Line. . . Like a Stumbling Drunk

Starring:  Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon  Directed:  James Mangold

The amazing story of Johnny Cash told in film form.  I will admit that there was no other show this entire year that I had been more anxious for than this one.  Walk the Line, starring the talented Joaquin "I have cleft lip, because my parents were almost as big of druggies as my older brother River who died from the aforementioned drug problem thingy" Phoenix and then the lovely Orville Redenbacher extra buttery country style actress that is Reese Witherspoon, had me all but jerking off in the car on the way to the theatre.  Unfortunately, two hours, a box of Sour Patch Kids, and 60-ounce Powerade later, the only thing I gave a shit about was my bladder. . . and the innocent sour children drowning within me.

 
I wish that I could do this review without comparing the movie at all to Ray.  But the similarities are too strong and my mind keeps making reference and what the hell reviews are about opinions anyway; so what the hell?  The movie begins with a country beat that is catchy as all hell in a rowdy prison, with who is presumably Johnny Cash behind the stage - inching his hand towards an electric saw, before cutting to Cash’s childhood.  Here we are introduced to Johnny’s older brother.  Just about the time that it is made clear that Johnny and his brother Jack are very close and important to one-another, Jack tragically dies.

Of course, the alcoholic father blames Johnny and this foreshadows a life of insecurity and resentment for Johnny.  Whatever.  This is very much like Ray in that Ray’s brother dies in that movie at a young age and he always has sense of guilt about it. 

Why am I making these comparisons for no reason?

It is probably the same reason for which you  are still working for the  man. . . Ooooooo dis! How does it feel to be a pawn? Yeah, get back to me on that:  thephilomath@gmail.com.

Anyway, Johnny Cash gets married has children and then becomes unhappy with his home-life and begins to pursue a little lady by the name of June Carter (Witherspoon).  It is a lot like in Ray, when Ray started to pull the "I might be blind, but I can still hustle" routine on __insert hot black chick’s name__.  Cash’s cheating heart seems more sincere than Ray’s, but who really gives a damn.  Much like Ray, Johnny becomes a drug addict and he ends up spending some time in prison.  Then some other crap happens. . .I’ll make a flow chart to explain.

Johnny wants June  =>  June doesn’t want Johnny

Johnny does drugs and still wants June  =>  Drug thing really ain’t helping June like John

Johnny starts turning his life around for June  =>  June likes this

Yeah, because that is a flowchart.  Fuck you.  The point is it becomes a love story.  There are a couple cool parts where Cash says something about how he might be going to a funeral to explain why he’s wearing black . . .you know it was in the previews.

All right, so there you have the fourth-assed plot summary, now for why watching it was the equivalent of tweezing every individual pubic hair on my body.  How about following his life more instead of constructing a love story and then clumsily plucking chunks of his proverbial musical timeline to advance the scenes?  I understand that a large part of his life was about his pursuit of his dream woman June and I too find it touching that it was so meant to be that they overcame the obstacles and then finally married and lived the rest of their lives out together, but fuck that.  I wanted to see the artist in more walks of life (MS Word, just put a green squiggly line under "walks of life" and suggested I use the word "occupations" instead, because that would be more grammatically correct. . . what the fuck is that? UGH!!! Go to hell you piece of fuck program) than just the pursuit of Junes and that is literally what the entire film revolved around.  While trying to remain completely objective, his life probably did have just about everything to do with trying to win her heart and just about nothing to do with everything else, but regardless of that shit, his life did not end when the chase ended.

What do I mean by this?  The movie ends when finally, fucking, finally after 2 hours of nonsensical bullshit, June agrees to get married.  Then it is over.  Oh no wait, there was one last scene that went like this. . .

On a positive note, Joaquin was brilliant.  His talking voice was not amazingly accurate, but his singing voice more than made up for it.  He managed to capture the baritone roughness and emotion that made all of Cash’s songs seem so real and vivid.  I found every concert scene to be almost hypnotic; as if actually seeing live concert footage of the Man in Black.  Furthermore, Witherspoon really seems to break away from her previously Legally Retarded career, with a performance that will most likely land her some more serious roles in movies that might not have cliché love triangles bogging them down.

So perhaps I was done in by the plague of over-anticipation, but regardless, I was pretty fucking disappointed as I filed out of the cinema.  The story only seemed to capture a small portion of a legendary man’s life.  Obviously asking for a screenplay that can juggle all of the events of a man’s life in 2 hours is a task that is very difficult, which is why I really gain respect for Ray, because, whether it be fair to compare or not, I really believe that his story was presented in a more adequate way that Johnny’s.  I give the movie a 7/10, because it was directed pretty well and the acting was really good, but it loses points with me for having a less than ballsy script.

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