"Crazy Heart": Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Erik Luers

Fox Searchlight's trailer for the recently scheduled, late-in-the-game, Oscar hopeful, "Crazy Heart," may strike you as eerily similar to that of another Best Actor contender released last year by the studio. The movie I'm referring to is, of course, "The Wrestler," a story about a once-successful wrestling superstar now living paycheck to paycheck while working at local, no-name dives. The trailer for "Crazy Heart" shows Jeff Bridges as the exact same thing--that is, if you replace a wrestling superstar with a famed country singer. It looks as if he may even have some heart-wrenching family issues (Robert Duvall, at only 18 years his senior, plays Bridges' father), and that means strong cinematic drama. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a reporter interested in interviewing "Bad Blake," and it looks as if their relationship will bloom into something more and provide the film with some backbone. Maybe.

The trailer stresses the fact that Bridges is a four-time Academy Award nominee, and that he is, in this film, giving the performance of a lifetime, although no critic is quoted as having said that. His character seems heartfelt, sincere, and most importantly, redeemable. It also appears as if Bad Blake will get a chance to once again perform in the big leagues, and this opportunity may also reflect the hopes of the actor playing him.

The film is scheduled for release on December 16, 2009, the same week the studio released "The Wrestler" last year. Throughout the trailer, a song entitled "Crazy Heart" plays over bright and sunny images (again, just as Springsteen's song did in "The Wrestler"), and we smile and hum along. The marketing department knows what they're doing. After Paramount purchased the film for $7 million, the movie, which once seemed slated for the Wal-Mart bargain bin, now is looking to be remembered come a specific night in March at the Kodak Theater. We'll see.

Oh, and don't blink or you'll miss Colin Farrell's quick cameo appearance, and I'm sure he wouldn't want that.