Crazy Heart – Jeff Bridges

Washed up Country Singer

With the character of Bad Blake Jeff Bridges returns, very briefly, to the Lebowski bowling alley for one more whiskey soaked, sweaty and alcoholically haemorrhoidal performance for a small crowd of old local cowboys and girls before he embarks on a biscuits and gravy tour heading for the horizon to follow an inebriated and swaggering sun as it slips, slides and tumbles beneath the horizon.

Whiskey Soaked Guitar

Blake is no bowler though but a washed out country singer whose rusty star is both faded, yet still feted, as he drives from one small time gig to another in his ageing Silverado. A chain-smoking but heart-warming slob of Dude-esque proportions; overweight, cynical yet sanguine, Blake just about survives on his back catalogue, eking a marginal living in the poverty stricken cryptography of his own myth.

Bridges even breaks the frame for a split second; but it doesn’t matter, Bad Blake, despite his all too human fallibility and cliched propensities remains a charming wreck of a man and Bridges is as engaging as warm apple pie, French vanilla ice cream and Bourbon.

T-Bone Burnett

Beautifully shot with the rich, faded glamour, old glory, and stylized nostalgia of country and western mythology the entire cast (including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Harry Zinn, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell) turn in an engagingly magnetic performance built around T-Bone Burnett’s awesome songwriting,

Bridges’ magnificent portrait and a solid, albeit atypical story. Humourous, human and gritty; if you’ve ever loved and lost, been forgiven, failed, or maybe even been saved this one’s for you. If you haven’t it is still an entertaining film and the music is great.