Product Details

• Directors: Scott Cooper
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: April 20, 2010
• Run Time: 112 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (150 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0039UT3LK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,963 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Crazy Heart" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In a career filled with unforced, naturalistic performances, Jeff Bridges gives one of his finest in Crazy Heart. His oft-married, booze-soaked troubadour Bad Blake has just rolled into Santa Fe when he meets Maggie Gyllenhaal's journalist Jean. "Where do all the songs come from?" she asks during their initial encounter. "Life, unfortunately," he sighs. Against Jean's better judgment, her fling with Blake blooms into a full-fledged relationship. Between gigs, Blake hangs out with the divorcée and her 4-year-old son, with whom he establishes an instant rapport, possibly because the musician is just an overgrown kid himself (and also because he hasn't seen his own boy in years). While Blake plays juke joints, his protégé, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell, cast against type to fine effect), plays stadiums, but just when director Scott Cooper's debut seems to be going down the same path as A Star Is Born, Sweet offers his mentor an opportunity that could revive his reputation--at the expense of his still-healthy ego. Between Jean and Tommy, things start looking up for Blake until a critical error puts his stab at redemption in jeopardy. Once Robert Duvall enters the scene as Blake's favorite bartender, it's clear that Cooper has Tender Mercies in his sights, but Crazy Heart, which features music by T-Bone Burnett and rough-hewn singing by its Golden Globe-winning star, plays more like a sincere cover version than a strikingly original composition. Still, like Duvall's in Tender Mercies, Bridges's performance is Oscar-worthy. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

A faded country music musician is forced to reassess his dysfunctional life during a doomed romance that also inspires him. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 04/20/2010 Starring: Jeff Bridges Run time: 111 minutes Rating: R Director: Scott Cooper

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An education for folks that don't understand Alcoholism or Groupies., April 21, 2010

By 

eezavel "phonician" (OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Heart (DVD)

Addressing all negative comment's about the content of this movie!

This moaning about how Bad Blake's drinking, smoking, urinating in a bottle..Just MADE people look at the ugly truth of alcoholism. They should have got a clue from preview's that they wouldn't be interested in this movie. But they watch it anyway and then leave bad comment's? In the REAL WORLD people act like Bad Blake's character EVERY DAY and for Jeff Bridges to ACT like an alcoholic and not in real life being one He did an Outstanding Oscar Worthy job.

The negative comment's prove that some do not understand how badly alcohol addiction can break people and how it make's them act... well, here is a taste of it. This kind of life is far from perfect... apparently people disgusted by this movie don't understand as they have never beeen around alcoholic's and haven't a clue about how drunk's really act!

Don't put down what you don't understand, as someday someone close to you may become dependent on alcohol and will need someone in their corner. Will you think their behaviour is too disgusting to try and help them get better?

Also, the comment's of Maggies character not being realistic, not wanting to be w/an much older man with issue's..Where have you people been. The Ugliest of musician's out there can still get some action because they are musician's! To this day.. young girls FLOCK to George Straight, Hank Jr, even Mick Jagger and Keith Richard's...They are called Groupies who would go home w/any one in the band! So YES, this could be a very possible hook-up!

I think Jeff Bridges did an excellent job playing a down and out alcholoic trying to play his music but being drunk all the time has jeapordized his health and career.

The ONLY thing that WAS off about this movie that was not spoke of was Colin Farrell?! - Love him - but he looked out of place and not like a real country singer at all. VERY strange casting.

If you want cute, clean country Without: Old womanizing singer's, drinking, vomiting, smoking, urinating, cry in your beer song, drunks - Look out for a Taylor Swift movie as she has no clue about old country and how those singer's lived through their rowdy day's that made country - country.

I thought the movie had a message for people to realize when someone you care for has become too far gone and need's help - Sure is nice to have a Very patient and understanding person there to give you that help.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine film -- but the "best scene" didn't make the final cut!, October 8, 2010

By 

Mark Blackburn (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crazy Heart (DVD)

Have you watched the "extra features" yet on the BLU-RAY edition of "CRAZY HEART"? I did so last night with a rental copy ("89 cents, Thursdays only") -- from my neighborhood mom & pop grocery store [which may yet outlive a nearby Blockbuster that wants six Canadian dollars for similar rental.]

As an aside, may I say I'm one of those odd folks who watch ALL the closing credits of movies -- the last guy left in the theatre, watching the credit roll to the bitter end (usually to find out "who wrote that song?") Glad I watched all the "deleted scenes" from this one as they included one that would have been my `favorite scene' (in an otherwise solid, '4-star' film).

I'm thinking too that, from the perspective of any male who ever fathered a child `out of wedlock' -- and didn't get to meet his child for a couple of decades -- the most powerful scene (I believe) was left on the proverbial `cutting-room floor.'

The segment that runs at least seven minutes, opening with the 28-year-old son, whom "Bad" has never met, or even communicated with, returning his call to say, reluctantly, "and only because my wife says I should," that he's agreed to meet with his dad after all. (We don't get to see him in the film.) "I'll be on the next plane," says his gratified father.

Immediately, we see a cab drive up a long gravel driveway to a farm house, where the young man greets his father with distant politeness, and introduces him to his pretty wife. And though she has only a couple of spoken lines, the superb actress (not named, obviously in the closing credits) conveys the most endearing blend of patience and anxious hope -- trying to will this meeting, which she has arranged, into a genuine, heart-to-heart reconciliation: It is not to be.

When things begin to turn sour, she diplomatically exits to the next room, telling "Bad" -- "You could use another beer." The camera intercuts to her face (only twice) as she listens-in on a conversation going all wrong. Her lovely face is SO expressive -- conveying perfectly her misplaced hope for a reconciliation between father and son - a hope crushed within minutes of "Bad's" arrival.

After some cynical parrying -- with Bad's meagre attempts at conversation ("I saved this money clip for you and always meant to give it to you") his son says, in a flat-toned voice that drips contempt,

"You know, since you got here, you haven't asked a single thing about US -- my wife and me," [and that] "you must be the most self-absorbed S.O.B. on the face of this earth."

`Bad' says, "Call me a cab," and gets up to leave; unable to look his son in the eye, he declares in obvious self-pity, "Well, at least I TRIED." And the viewer realizes that self-pity is the ONLY emotion left to this self-absorbed, alcoholic, `has-been.'

It's a scene so poignant (and so real) it reduced this viewer to tears. How can it be left out? Usually scenes are cut if they don't actually advance the plot: But THIS scene (you may agree) is a mini-masterpiece, fleshing out an aspect of "Bad's" character - to make him even more 'three-dimensional.' And since no other reviewer has mentioned it, I thought it was worth pointing out this one "deleted scene." (See if it doesn't speak to your heart!)

Thanks to the screen writer (or the book's author) for composing this `note-perfect' slice of life; thanks as well to the film's director (or producers) for making sure it was included in those 'extra features.'

Mark Blackburn
Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of those heart-felt, quiet dramas, May 28, 2010

By 

Judy K. Polhemus "Book Collector" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crazy Heart (DVD)

It's easy to understand how Anthony Hopkins won a Best Acting role for playing Hannibal Lector--that's a mighty big step away from one's core. But to win the Academy Award for playing a low-key role, such as Bad Blake, a washed-out, mostly drunk country singer, is a fine achievement for perennially excellent actor Jeff Bridges in "Crazy Heart." In fact, I suspect he won for a lifetime achievement with this latest role, simply the next in a long line of outstanding acting.

This is a film I wanted to see because of Bridges but dreaded because I know he plays a man who drinks. My father was a drinker. It's not a pretty sight or experience. Instead, I saw a working drunk, a man who could and did work right through his drinking, just as my father did. But the bottom line: working drunk is not living fully. And that's what this movie is about: not living a life fully and directly.

Bridges plays a washed-out (repeated phrase for a purpose) country singer, clinging to a living just enough to get the next bottle for the gig. Just how low has Bad sunk? He drives himself from one bowling alley lounge to bar to truck stop in the hot, arid western states, the heat simply reflecting the unwashed appearance that Bad carries with him, clean or not. That nasty film of drink, smoke, rock-bottom life clings to him, clean or not.

How many years has Bad lived this way? Too many. How many more until he drinks himself to death? In the beginning he wrote songs that paved his way, but that was long ago. Until he has a gig in Sante Fe in a little nightclub where he promised the owner/piano player to allow his niece to interview him. Maggie Gyllenhaall plays Janie, also a drifter through life, at a crossroads, a single mom trying to find her way as a reporter. I was touched by her also perfect performance. For some reason she is attracted to this stinky, sweaty, aging country singer.

The redeeming grace--as there must be one in such a story--comes through Janie's son. Bad really connects with the boy as much as he does with Janie. The horror scene involving the boy displays that award-winning acting by Bridges. Oh my, his facial expressions, his body language made me feel his own terror at what he had done--or not done. What place Bridges had to go in his psyche to find that terror must have given him nightmares!

That point in time changes Bad. For a rare moment in my movie watching history, I found myself not hoping or cheering or wishing for the character, just watching to discover what he would do. That next section of the story, that acting also congealed Bridges's winning performance. It is so perfect.

To his extra credit, Bridges sings. Frankly, he could make a living at it. He sings a number of times. Colin Farrell as Bad's former friend and current nemesis (only in Bad's mind) also sings. It's a country music movie with excellent performances, alone worth the price of your ticket. But to see Jeff Bridges take a simple role of a less-than-admirable man and make the viewer want that man to be better is the real reason to see this film. The singing is just part of that performance.

It's the quiet dramas that reflect life in all its aspects that make us want to continue going to the movies. "Crazy Heart" is one of those quiet dramas of the heart with a touching story and excellent acting. I might even buy the soundtrack!