Walk the Line Review, Trailer, Pic, Movie Poster

Walk the Line Review

Synopsis: The story traces Cash's life from his poor childhood - marked by the tragic death of his brother - to the late 1960s, when he finally overcame his pill-popping addiction, with the help of Carter and her family.

Based on Cash's two autobiographies, the script just skims the hows and whys of Cash's drive to sing and write songs. Especially in the first few reels, the movie is choppy, as if many scenes had been cut to whittle down the running time. One moment we see a young Cash lying in bed weeping at the loss of his brother, the next he is joining the military.

His first wife, Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin) is introduced talking to Cash via long distance, with him asking her to marry him. The next scene shows Cash wandering through a music store in Germany, picking up a guitar and teaching himself to play.

No motivation or explanation for these actions is given. Dennis and Mangold simply rush through events to get to what the audience expects - Johnny Cash, singer, and the beginning of his tumultuous courtship of Carter.And that is one of the pitfalls when doing bio-pics of artists in any field. Filmmakers seem hesitant to take the time to examine the early creative process, the forces that inspired or shaped their subjects - be it a singer, painter or any kind of artist - in order to concentrate on that clichéd montage of the subject on stage belting out familiar hits or in the studio painting that well-known masterpiece. Walk the Line follows that well-worn arc. Cash enjoys success, goes on the road, neglects his family, gets hooked on pills, falls in love with another woman, loses his family and teeters on the brink of self-destruction before being saved, reviving his career and becoming bigger than ever.

However, the strong performances overcome and compensate the script's shortcomings.

Walk the Line is flawed, but, nevertheless, entertaining and exhilarating. It's more than a biography, it's a love story about two people in the public arena who must overcome obstacles within and without to finally come together.

The story of Johnny Cash and June Carter is like a country music ballad, and that's the magic that makes Walk the Line so appealing and worthwhile.