Walk Hard - DVD Review

If there’s a chink in Judd Apatow’s shiny comic armour, it’s not knowing when to let the laughter stop. Take the producer/ co-writer’s spoof of the Ray/Walk The Line school of musical bios: like faux-featurette The Real Dewey Cox, it overplays its central riff, schlepping through the decades and flogging its running gags (Dewey’s drug habits, dad’s “The wrong kid died!” refrain, the word ‘Cox’) until they’re dead, decaying nags. Still, there’s a good hour of cliché-twatting mirth, anchored in John C Reilly’s sub-Ferrell but sweetly-silly turn as the Alabama plank-spanker who rocks and rolls with the chart trends from folk to filth-rap. Meantime, Apatow, director/co-scribe Jake Kasdan and songsmith Michael Andrews take a leaf from the Spinal Tap/Mighty Wind playbook, firing out entendre-thick but credible, catchy ditties. Fewer extras here than on the Region 1 double-discer; we’re also missing ‘The Unbearably Long, Self-Indulgent Director’s Cut’. Probably just as well...