Walk Hard: The Story of Dewey Cox

Walk Hard makes itself exist between good satire and the muddled version prevelant in so many Will Ferrel movies. The film had a chance to be more, but collapsed under the pressure.
The problem is that the movie clings to the latter interpretation of satire. It's more structured than the usual Ferrel mess, but the exaggerrations are still there. John C. Reily is playing Dewey Cox through and through. When his character hits moments hat reflect other great musicians, it's all still the Cox persona. It's no more ridiculous than how Ferrel would have seen him be if he played the part.

Parts of the movie are funny because they feel like comic twists on popular history, but a lot of it feels like loose make ups of what really happened. I only got a sense of some musicians while most were too generic to be insightful. As the Great Dictator proved, you do need to accurately portray your subject before you send him off on zaney adventures. That's the only thing that Chaplin didn't do.

The ultimate problem is that I feel is that the filmmakers captured and undermined music history as thoroughly and accurately as Wil Ferrel did Nascar racing with Talladagha Nights. The film was too loose with the references and the story dragged too much. We don't care too much for plot and instead want a series of good jokes.