By Robert Scucci
| Published
Unfounded conspiracy theory time. 2007’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story isn’t available on streaming because it has the potential to destroy an entire industry if it were readily available for anybody to watch. What industry, you ask? The musical biopic industry. It’s such an on-the-nose parody with its reductive and over simplistic storylines and beats that it threatens to undermine award winning films like Bohemian Rhapsody, A Complete Unknown, and, most recently, the Jeremy Allen White Springsteen project, Deliver Me from Nowhere.
As a musician who absolutely despises musical biopics, I think I have a solid and totally not biased argument here. Every single biopic is exactly the same, without fail, and Walk Hard dismantles the entire genre through parody. Any casual viewer who watches this Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan vehicle before watching a “legitimate” biopic will simply decide to walk away from the genre. You can’t take films like The Dirt or Walk the Line seriously after Walk Hard exposes how formulaic they really are.
The Power Of Effective Parody
I used to work with a guy who was way too into Motley Crue in the sense that he unironically celebrated their entire catalog. When 2019’s The Dirt dropped on Netflix, he ranted about it for a week. A musician myself who at the time could take or leave musical biopics, I watched it on his recommendation. I was irritated to no end, not only because The Dirt tries to reframe some genuinely abhorrent behavior as a hero’s arc, but because of how reductive the storytelling was. It’s like the band came from nothing and became megastars overnight, and all the nuance is stripped away.
It may seem like I’m writing this Walk Hard article just so I can rail on The Dirt, and that’s partially true. The problem with The Dirt, and the genre it belongs to, is that there’s way too much timeline hopping that tries to lionize musicians while playing out like an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music. Nikki Sixx runs away from home, squats in an apartment with his bandmates, plays one gig, and then takes the world by storm. There’s sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Then tragedy strikes. The band hits a low point. They have a falling out. They reconcile. Then they gear up for the triumphant comeback concert while real footage of the band plays over the credits.
This is the problem with musical biopics. Pick any single biopic out of a random lineup and it’ll lean into the same cliché beats without any deep cuts. It’s actors cosplaying as rock stars, giving audiences a Wikipedia rundown of a decades long career in less than two hours. It’s a buffet of biography that simply doesn’t lend itself to this format if you’re a diehard fan of the artist. Musical biopics are cinematic coffee table books, and Walk Hard thrives in this context.
The Walk Hard Rundown
For the sake of my own argument, I’m not going to give you the entire beat by beat breakdown of Walk Hard because if you’re a person with eyes and ears, you already know what’s up. Dewey Cox, played by John C. Reilly, is about to perform his final comeback performance, so of course he needs to think about his entire life before hitting the stage. It’s a carbon copy of Walk the Line’s opening sequence, and it’s so intentionally patronizing that you’ll never watch the film it’s parodying with a straight face again.
We learn about how Dewey accidentally cut his brother, Nate (Chip Hormess), in half with a machete, giving us the “haunted by his past” angle every biopic needs. Dewey, who never got over it, is reminded by his father (Raymond J. Barry) that “the wrong son died,” every time they’re onscreen together. Dewey teaches himself blues guitar in a single evening, and seven years later he’s portrayed as a 14 year old, even though it’s clearly just John C. Reilly with no makeup to make him look younger.
Like A Real Biopic, Things Continue To Escalate
Dewey meets Jewish record executives and gets his big shot. He’s nearly laughed out of the recording booth but decides to record his new song, “Walk Hard,” as a Hail Mary attempt at a hit. The band behind him has never heard the song before but is told to follow his lead, which instantly results in perfect harmonies because everybody suddenly knows the lyrics and chord changes. Theo (Chris Parnell) takes the bass line for a walk, and Dave (Matt Besser) comps on guitar like he’s practiced it for years.
Dewey Cox becomes a household name, but his drummer, Sam (Tim Meadows), feeds him drugs with warnings like, “you definitely don’t want this, it’s so good it will ruin your life.” Dewey takes the drugs, and they ruin his life. Dewey marries his second wife, Darlene (Jenna Fischer), without a single thought for his first wife at home, Edith (Kristen Wiig), whom he’s still married to and has kids with. It goes on like this. But don’t worry, there will be a triumphant ending because it’s a musical biopic.
So On-The-Nose That It Ruins Biopics
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story quietly destroyed an entire genre upon release. Though it was a critical hit, it failed commercially, earning $20 million at the box office against a reported $35 million budget. The damage, however, had already been done. Now celebrated as a cult classic, it’s easy to see why Walk Hard has stood the test of time. Not a single musical biopic released since can be taken seriously because John C. Reilly knew the assignment. He’s the embodiment of the media friendly, reputation managed biographical film, and his commitment to the bit directly undermines the impact of any “true story” created to play like a greatest hits reel.
While there’s no way for me to definitively prove that Walk Hard is being kept off streaming to protect studio investments in current and upcoming musical biopics, I’m certain this is why it’s hidden behind paywalls to deter viewers from throwing down cash when they’re already subscribed to 10 other streaming platforms.
Dewey Cox is a certified assassin, and Freddie Mercury, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, and Elvis Presley are all in his crosshairs. As of this writing, you can’t stream Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. If you want to validate my theory, you can rent or purchase it through Amazon Prime Video, Fandango At Home, and YouTube.