steve jaros
Supporting Actor
Whilst everyone else was seeing Batman or Zootopia, I saw this Hank Williams biopic. I was hoping to learn something about him, because even though his name is iconic and I've known it since childhood, as someone who doesn't listen to country music, about all I've known about HW was (a) he sang "your cheatin' heart" and "hey good lookin'", (b) he's like the George Washington of country music, or at least its Abe Lincoln, and (c) he died young, in the early 1950s.
The director pulled two actors from the Marvel universe to play the lead roles. The actor who plays HW, the same guy who plays Loki in the Thor movies, seems effective. He's always effective. But in this movie, at what? At keeping the action moving enough so that I was never bored during the whole two hours, and that's more than I can say for a lot of films. I was mildly entertained. And the female lead, Hank's wife and then ex-wife, is played by an actress who I mainly know from Captain America and Age of Ultron. And she seems to do a fine job, too. The film is at its best when he's drinking too much and she's pissed off and they look into each other's eyes with love and anger. You feel that.
That said, this move disappointed me. After having watched it, I really don't know anything more about Hank Williams than the points A, B, and C that i mentioned above. He drinks too much, he sings songs, he has sex with and then fights with the women around him. With the exception noted above, the movie is all surface-level, we never get to know any of the characters. It's paint-by-numbers, after-school special filmmaking. It contrasts badly with biopics of other famous 50s musicians, like the ones of Buddy Holly and Ray Charles, or even the recent one on James Brown. This film is extremely lightweight by comparison. So don't expect to learn or feel anything knew about HW from it.
4/10 stars
The director pulled two actors from the Marvel universe to play the lead roles. The actor who plays HW, the same guy who plays Loki in the Thor movies, seems effective. He's always effective. But in this movie, at what? At keeping the action moving enough so that I was never bored during the whole two hours, and that's more than I can say for a lot of films. I was mildly entertained. And the female lead, Hank's wife and then ex-wife, is played by an actress who I mainly know from Captain America and Age of Ultron. And she seems to do a fine job, too. The film is at its best when he's drinking too much and she's pissed off and they look into each other's eyes with love and anger. You feel that.
That said, this move disappointed me. After having watched it, I really don't know anything more about Hank Williams than the points A, B, and C that i mentioned above. He drinks too much, he sings songs, he has sex with and then fights with the women around him. With the exception noted above, the movie is all surface-level, we never get to know any of the characters. It's paint-by-numbers, after-school special filmmaking. It contrasts badly with biopics of other famous 50s musicians, like the ones of Buddy Holly and Ray Charles, or even the recent one on James Brown. This film is extremely lightweight by comparison. So don't expect to learn or feel anything knew about HW from it.
4/10 stars
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