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I have really two things to say, then I’ll elaborate. “Great movie!” and “Awful script!”

I’ll start with the good, because this is a great movie. It’s entertaining and a wonderful watch for us Johnny cash fans. The acting is superb. I can’t really say I was expecting much from Joaquin Phoenix (maybe I still hold his performance in Gladiator against him), but he managed to pull it off in a way that really impressed me. I almost wonder if now when I see a film with him, I might not expect too much from him. Reese Witherspoon was also excellent as June Cater Cash. There’s nothing really surprising there though since this young lady’s talent can make a film like Sweet Home Alabama watchable. Put together the fact that not only did these two do such a wonderful job acting (just like the real people they portrayed), they also played and sang all the songs. How cool is that? So needed less to say, even the music was great.

The directing was unnoticeable, but in a good way. Directors are in a lot of ways lie the managers in an office. The best managers are not too hands off, but also not micro managers. The same with the director of a movie. It can’t be so obvious that he’s behind the camera, but he also can’t allow everything to spiral out of control. James Mangold managed this film well.

I was pleased to recognize many of the locations used for shooting. The film was shot in my hometown, so it was all very familiar. Maybe I am biased, but I thought the location were effective.

So…

• Acting – Great
• Music – Great
• Directing – Good
• Locations – Cool

What was wrong with this movie? It was the script. The script was horrible. This movie and the people that worked on it deserve Oscar nods. The script deserves to go where Oscar the Grouch lives. First of all, it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be when it grew up. First it was about Johnny Cash the person. Then it was about Johnny Cash the Musician. Then it was focused on the love affair between Johnny and June. This caused the film to spread its resources too thin on each of these and not focus enough on any of hem to actually tell a story. Oh, then there the dialog. Having to hear line like June Carter while alone in her car saying, “It burns, burns, burns” was only made tolerable by Reese Witherspoon’s delivery. I mean it don’t get any cheesier than that this side of Muenster. Another cheesy moment was when Johnny was watching the shoeshine boys rhythm out side of Sun Studios. It seemed that any moment for an inspiration for a song was purely a moment for cheese.

So overall I give the movie a four out of five, with the script the only thing holding it back. Normally with such a poor script I wouldn’t go so far, but the acting jobs Reese and Joaquin did were so outstanding, I had to give extra points for them. But, don’t let my thought on the script keep from it. It’s still entertaining. I’ll go ahead and say, if you haven’t seen it yet……Go! NOW!

A couple of my favorite blogs also had some things to say about the movie:

[Catholic Fire: Movie Review: Walk the Line]
[Urbangrounds: Walk The Line]