Sean Mulvihill’s review published on Letterboxd:
Full review at: fanboynation.com/walk-hard-the-dewey-cox-story-2007/
he musical biopic generally tries to tie the subject’s genius to some form of childhood drama, usually in an impoverished southern setting. Just because many great musicians grew up poor in the south doesn’t mean that every movie about them needs to feature these moments. But that’s where Walk Hard begins. A young Dewey and his older brother Nate are playing on the family farm. Their forms of play have an escalating danger to them which ends tragically when Dewey accidentally hacks his brother in half with machete. Dewey’s father, Pa (Raymond J. Barry), blames the young man for the death of his favorite son. Conversely, Ma Cox (Margo Martindale) is worried about the trauma her still-living son has experienced, a trauma so great that his rendered the young Dewey “smell-blind.” Between the guilt over his brother’s death and the unrelenting patriarchal anger, Dewey has to be twice as great to fulfil his destiny.