#Re-releaseWalkHardTheDeweyCoxStory
I grow ever so ever so weary of the same cycle that goes with these music biopics. It really is beginning to drive me quite mad. A truncation story with youth flashbacks that is wholly anachronistic and a painfully clean portrayal of the often troubled and complex figures at the heart of the films, bolstered by obviously incredible music and normally (Bohemian Rhapsody withstanding) a stellar lead performance. But putting great music in your film does not a good film make, nor for that matter does showing a wildly conflated and for the most part factually inaccurate recounting of how events took place. One Love is a film that ticks all the tired, tired boxes and with this coming on the eve of the Amy Winehouse film, one is faced with a very easy decision – rewatch the brilliant documentaries made about these people, Marley and Amy, films made and told with respect and clarity and often using the real people’s voices, or watch this watered down by the numbers boringness.
Directed by Reinaldo
Marcus Green who brought King Richard to the screen, a movie that was solid
with a terrific Will Smith performance that of course as time goes by has become
subsumed by the beyond unbelievable moment that followed, that people forget
that Smith, Green and King Richard as a whole was a piece of solid and pretty
good work. The issue is that there was nothing very special about it, it was by
the numbers in its own genre of the sports biopic and although it had moments
of highs, it overall was very standard. So Green was not exactly the voice to
break the mould of this ever-growing wave of torrid musical biopics, so I am in
no way surprised that his Bob Marley film is just the same as the rest. However
this is a film that this time is painfully by the numbers, much has already
been tweeted about the shameless use of the original songs (No Woman No Cry moments
after an argument with his wife, Jammin during a jam session, Redemption
Song moments after a man comes to ask for redemption). It’s beyond cliché and
at times it’s even beyond parody. I return to Walk Hard, a film that so
perfectly encapsulated all of these tropes into the perfect spoof over ten
years ago and people still don’t discuss that film with the reverence that it
for my money so desperately deserves. Kinglsey Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch are
both genuinely superb as Bob and Rita Marley and manage to deliver genuine and
truthful performances that avoid too much mimicry and focus on the subtle for
the most part, but still they are in the middle of a very lacklustre film that
hits all the worst things these films can do and never once feels worthy of
Marley or his music. As I say every single time – just listen to the music,
just watch concert footage – or better yet watch the brilliant documentary Marley
by Kevin Macdonald, for there is frankly nothing of worth here to see that
that film doesn’t convey a hundred times better.
A terribly, terribly bland 4/10, maybe even 3. Two lead performances that are great just cannot save these biopics anymore I find. Yes, I love some of these songs, but hearing them in a movie screen with real sound does not a good film make. The story is trite and the portrayal is so clean it feels like you can see the removal of stains as you watch the film. Marcus Green with King Richard made a film that had so much more focus and felt a lot more original than this somehow, but if one was more critical would probably have many of the same flaws this film has. But Green faces here the issue that Ghostbusters: Afterlife had in the wave of soft-reboots, in that this is by no means the absolute worst of this kind of film, but it is certainly more of the same bland middle, and I have certainly reached his limit. So again… I say… #Re-releaseWalkHardTheDeweyCoxStory.
P.S. We are literally weeks away from the Amy Winehouse film, the breaks in between these bloody things keeps getting shorter and shorter and that one looks like it could be even worse than this and certainly more egregious and sickening a concept. So most likely get ready for another angry one when that film comes out.
One last time… #Re-releaseWalkHardTheDeweyCoxStory
- -Thomas Carruthers
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