Crazy Heart Reviews
Quickflix
Cooper is so afraid of being bold and baring some soul, he achieves little more than the anachronistic, cookie-cutter blues that his lead character spent a lifetime trying to avoid.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Financial Times
The film's Texas and New Mexico landscapes are ravishing, and the songs are beautifully performed, but these offer little more than occasional relief from a very obvious tale.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Film School Rejects
The film aspires to such low-key minimalism that it leaves no more than a fleeting emotional effect.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Slant Magazine
This is simply a showcase for Jeff Bridges, and a reasonably decent one at that even when the script thrusts Bad down tediously hackneyed roads.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
The Movie Kit
While it showcases Jeff Bridges' extraordinary talents and delivers a couple of decent country music tunes, Crazy Heart is basically a retread that doesn't leave much of a lasting impression.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Little White Lies
It's not possible to flaw Bridges here. Akin to Falstaff, the detail of his characterisation - from stagger to cough to swagger to song - is fascinating. But he needs more thorough contextualisation to fly.
Nick's Flick Picks
Crazy Heart finally disappoints because it's so manifestly a character in search of a movie.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Film-Forward.com
Another awards season, another tale of middle-age redemption.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
7M Pictures
Basically a live-action version of the cliche country-western song with a man down on his luck and losing everything in his life, it comes close to being a joke about itself.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Philadelphia Weekly
Bridges raises the bar (har-har) for being shafaced onscreen, stumbling and vomiting his way to the stage in podunk clubs..."
IdentityTheory
Often feels like a half-hearted, half-assed remake of Tender Mercies.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Monsters and Critics
Charles Bukowski morphs into Dewey Cox in this denunciation of the evils of paralyzing drunkenness.
Full Review
| Original Score: 6/10
Mark Reviews Movies
As predictable as any of the old clichés about country music and men who write it, although that's mainly because Cooper's script ... uses so many of them without delving any deeper.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
rec.arts.movies.reviews
Another minimalist exercise seeking verisimilitude when the real goal should be drama.
Daily Mail [UK]
Bridges can play this kind of role in his sleep, and at times appears to be doing so. If he wins the Best Actor Oscar for this, it will be as a long-service medal, not a reflection of excellence in a demanding role.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Movie Habit
Don't expect greatness from the man named Bad
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
TheMovieReport.com
Formidable acting talent aside, this is routine self-destruction-and-recovery TV movie material.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Big Hollywood
With great performances from Bridges and Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart is a winner and a must-see.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Bullz-Eye.com
The real star is Bridges, who plays not so much a layered character, but a man whom we instantly identify with and understand and want to watch.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
