Crazy Heart (2009)

Jeff Bridges plays Otis "Bad" Blake, an alcoholic has-been country singer who plays a series of one night sets to scratch out a living. He was once a star, but those days seem gone along with his many marriages. He had a son 28 years ago, but has not seen him since he was small.

The film opens as Bad is getting ready to play at a bowling alley. He meets a journalist named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who wants to write a story about him. They begin a relationship and he becomes attached to her young son Buddy. Bad gets a call from his agent that country star Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) wants Bad to open for him at a concert. Bad doesn't want to do this as Tommy was once HIS protege, but he needs the money. After the concert Tommy asks him to write him some songs. Bad thinks that the songs would be duets for the both of them, but Tommy just wants him to write them and he would sing them.

This kind of puts Bad over the edge and he begins drinking. He crashes his car and ends up in the hospital. The relationship with Jean makes him rethink his life and he calls his son asking about him and his mother and finds out that his mother had died and his son hangs up on him. After Bad loses Buddy while drinking, Jean breaks it off with him.

He gets help with his drinking from his old friend Wayne (Robert Duval) and cleans up his act. He goes to Jean's to try to patch things up, but she thinks that it isn't a good idea. He moves on and writes a song for Tommy that becomes a big hit and he runs into Jean at one of Tommy's concerts and sees that she is wearing a ring. The last scene is of her interviewing Bad.

This movie is just like a lot of others that I have seen. The difference, I think, is the acting of Jeff Bridges. He was nominated for almost every award out there for this role and won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar. Check him out in "The Big Lebowski".

This movie is based on the novel by Thomas Cobb. The main character is rumored to have been based on a number of real country singers. You do not have to like country music to like this movie.

111 Minutes. Rated R. I give this movie THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS.