It is crazy to think that as I write this, Walk the Line is 19 years old, where does the time go? I am not a Johnny Cash fan, I do not dislike him and I know some of his hits. However, I will not lie and say that I am a big Johnny Cash fan. As a matter of fact, when I think of Johnny Cash, I think of the video for Hurt and how it was used for Eddie Guerrero in the WWE.
How to Download Walk the Line
Walk the Line was released on November 18, 2005. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform such as Amazon Prime Video. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
Despite not being a huge fan of his, I do recognize what a legend of the music industry he is. I had heard that this was coming out, but due to not being a fan, I kind of just dismissed it. Then the buzz started and I kept hearing more and more about what a great movie, Walk the Line was.
While I did not have the pleasure of seeing this in the theatre when it was released, Walk the Line was actually one of the last movies I ever rented from Blockbuster! I vividly remember sitting down to watch this on a Saturday night, excited to see if it lived up to the hype or if it was one of these overblown movies that people rave about, but I fail to see the appeal of.
Well, Walk the Line was and is fantastic! The story starts in the late 60s, but we then go back in time and basically relive Johnny Cash’s life. We do get a great deal of his musical career of course. However, the stuff with him as a kid, him in the armed forces, and him trying to be a family man before his music career was just as interesting as him becoming a music superstar.
The main story arc of Walk the Line is about Johnny and his relationship with fellow singer, June Carter. Being largely ignorant of the story of Johnny Cash, I had no idea just how important June Carter was to his life and career. I am sure if you are a Johnny Cash fan me saying that sounds ridiculous, but I thought that June was just as important to this movie as Johnny Cash was. She was not only talented and beautiful, she was also a very, very strong woman.
Ok, so we know what the story of Walk the Line is, but what made this such an amazing movie was the performances of our two leads, Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter. These two have phenomenal chemistry and both performances are just incredible.
These have to be two of, if not the best acting performances that these two have ever delivered. They 100 percent deserved all the awards and praise that they got for bringing these musical icons to life. Then I found out that the singing was not dubbed! Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix both actually sing and they sound great! Granted, I am not all that familiar with the real artists, but I would have believed that they just dubbed in the music. Not only that, these two learned to play some of the instruments as well.
Even if you are not a fan of Johnny Cash, Walk the Line is a wonderful story that will captivate you right from the start. My only criticism is that this is a movie you have to be careful with when adding to your collection. You want to make sure that you get the extended cut version, it has around 15 minutes of extra footage, but a whole bunch of extras too. I am hopeful that someday we will get a special 4K release from someone like Arrow or Criterion with a whole bunch of great extras.
