Crazy Heart

From the pen of The Movie Snob

Crazy Heart (B-). Jeff Bridges (Starman) stars in the Oscar-bait role of Bad Blake, a washed-up country singer-songwriter who supports his alcoholism by playing tiny concerts in bowling alleys and bars across the Southwest. During his travels, he meets the proverbial Good Woman -- a reporter and single mother named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Dark Knight), who interviews him for a local newspaper. We also encounter the Young Upstart (Colin Farrell, Minority Report) and the Sage Old-Timer (Robert Duvall, Tender Mercies) as Bad begins a tentative quest for redemption. It's not a bad movie, and Bridges is probably not capable of a bad performance, but it's all so familiar and predictable it's hard to get too excited about it.