Walk the Line (movie review)

Walk the Line

Quite a few reviews of “Walk the Line” out there in the blogosphere. www.getreligion.org has something to say on the matter,another over at Libertas , and I thought I would add my own thoughts. Maybe I have somewhat of a different perspective since my life of drugs and alcohol parallels his a little.

So here are my reactions to it. I liked it but its not perfect. From Hollywood these days I don’t think your not going to see a much better movie come out I don’t think there were any nudity scenes in the movie at all which is rarity in itself. No violence either.

There are several themes in the movie. The dominant theme in the movie probably is about his “romance” with June Carter. Not exactly sure how I feel about that . It is romanticized for sure but it does show the truth about how their relationship started in Adultery and broke up Cash’s family. Hollywood is always playing up the ‘romance as love ” angle between men and women. To their credit they do show Carter trying to resist his advances as not being right. There are a lot of good scenes in the movie. One is after the first adulterous encounter Johnny Cash comes back banging on her hotel room door saying ,”This is not wrong June. This in not wrong”. Life IS like that. How many adulterers after they fall do insist , “This is not wrong”. Denial. It would have been nice if they had shown some repentance about that during the movie.

Another theme is about his fall from boyhood innocence to the corruption of “sex,drugs, and rock n’ roll”, and then his return to innocence like the Prodigal Son. I liked that. It was presented in a subtle not preachy way. His resentment towards his Father is portrayed there subtly too. Throughout the movie I found myself thinking of his Father as a “Stepfather” even though he wasn’t. Good acting by the Father portraying a man without love. A good scene was where they were having dinner and they were talking about the accidental death of Johnny Cash’s older brother and Cash relives the trauma of his Father saying “where were you?” . Then with a twisted here’s getting you back smile Cash says “And where were you ?”, I liked this interplay. In the end the resentment towards the Father is gone too although shown in a subtle scene where Cash tells his Father to tell his kids a story.

God is mentioned but kind of sparingly. There is the gospel hymns in the beginning and his older brother wanting to be a preacher. There is a great scene after he goes through drug withdrawal when June Carter tells him God is giving him a second chance. And then it shows them going off to a Baptist Church. But it is done very sparingly. I suspect many Christians wont like that too much. However, I like what Old George Putnam has to say about things like that, “ A little bit of religion goes a long way”,

Theres a theme in their also about hypocritical religious people too but go see the movie and see that for yourself.



And it is true that most of the movie focuses on Johnny Cash’s Sin life and doesn’t show too much about his life post redemption. But I don’t think we can expect much more than that from Hollywood these days. After all, this was not a church sponsored film .

All in all though not too bad. And maybe this scripture is referring to people like Johnny Cash and June Carter. .

Luke 7:47 “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."