{"id":5183,"date":"2016-12-29T10:52:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T15:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=5183"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:02:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:02:00","slug":"crazy-heart-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=5183","title":{"rendered":"Crazy Heart-2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crazy Heart-2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Scott Cooper<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Jeff Bridges<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #571<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed December 29, 2016<\/p>\n

Grade: A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crazy Heart (2009) is a film that is perfectly crafted for Jeff Bridges’ talents as an actor, and the role seems written specifically for him.<\/p>\n

To that end, it is a showcase for the actor, and as proof, he was awarded the Best Actor Oscar.<\/p>\n

He plays surly, grizzled, and rode hard to the hilt. His chemistry with co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal is fantastic, despite her character being much younger than his.<\/p>\n

The first directorial effort by Scott Cooper, who does an outstanding job.<\/p>\n

Gyllenhaal plays a reporter, Jean Craddock, who becomes attached and fascinated by Bad Blake (Bridges), a former country-western star turned alcoholic and now a washed-up older man.<\/p>\n

He has mentored an upstart played by Colin Farrell, who has since usurped Bad Blake in popularity, leading Blake to depression and alcohol to relieve his pain.<\/p>\n

He still performs, but in dirty hotels or bowling alleys, for peanuts.<\/p>\n

Bridge’s character reminds me so much of Mickey Rourke’s character “Randy the Ram” in The Wrestler, from 2008, so anyone who enjoyed the latter will enjoy the former.<\/p>\n

One might watch the two exceptional films in tandem, and in both, a younger female character meshes well with the stories.<\/p>\n

The story portrayed in Crazy Heart is gritty and depressing, yet also heartwarming and sentimental. We root for Blake and Jean to succeed as they battle Blake’s many demons.<\/p>\n

Crazy Heart (2009) is very well-acted and genuine.<\/p>\n

The film is nice as it is a character-driven film instead of a story-dictated one.<\/p>\n

Oscar Nominations: 2 wins-<\/strong>Best Actor-Jeff Bridges (won)<\/strong>, Best Supporting Actress-Maggie Gyllenhaal, Best Original Song-“The Weary Kind” (won)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Independent Spirit Award Nominations: 2 wins-<\/strong>Best Male Lead-Jeff Bridges (won)<\/strong>, Best First Screenplay, Best First Feature (won)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crazy Heart-2009 Director Scott Cooper Starring Jeff Bridges Scott’s Review #571 Reviewed December 29, 2016 Grade: A- Crazy Heart (2009) is a film that is perfectly crafted for Jeff Bridges’ talents as an actor, and the role seems written specifically for him. To that end, it is a showcase for the actor, and as proof, … Continue reading Crazy Heart-2009<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308,192,41,211],"tags":[2229,913,2252,12374,697,2899],"class_list":["post-5183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2009-movie-reviews","category-dramas","category-indiefilms","category-indie-dramas","tag-colin-farrell","tag-jeff-bridges","tag-maggie-gyllenhaal","tag-paul-herman","tag-robert-duvall","tag-scott-cooper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5183"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24033,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5183\/revisions\/24033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}