Doesn't matter, though. The liquor store proprietor down the street recognizes his hero and hands him a bottle. Midway through that night's set, Blake is puking into a garbage can.
Despite the familiar story line - the alcoholic artist looking for redemption, and maybe an AA meeting to help him get there - Crazy Heart is the real thing, and a real gem. Bridges, an actor who makes it look effortless - he slips into his characters like he's just putting on a fresh shirt - has been handed the role of his career. (And for a guy who's already played the Dude, a Fabulous Baker Boy, a Starman, and car builder Preston Tucker, that's saying a lot.)
Looking a little like Kris Kristofferson but sounding a tad less croaky (Bridges does his own singing), the actor finds the heart and soul of this broke-down man. But not so broke he can't be reached by a glimmer of light - by way of a newspaper writer and Bad Blake aficionado, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal - that makes him think maybe he's got some life left in him. And even another song or two.
Speaking of songs, a movie about a guy renowned for his country classics wouldn't be worth much if the songs didn't sound like classics, and in Crazy Heart they do. Written by T Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham, and the late Stephen Bruton, "Fallin' & Flyin' " (with the line: "Funny how fallin' feels like flyin' - for a little while"), "Somebody Else," "I Don't Know," and "The Weary Kind" could easily find themselves on the Billboard charts. And in an uncredited turn, Colin Farrell shows up as a Toby Keith-like star who mentored under Blake and now packs arenas with a repertoire of Blake's old tunes. The Irish actor, talkin' in a dust-bowl drawl, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, sings the heck out of those songs, too.
