‘Crazy Heart’

Bad to the bone.

That's Jeff Bridges in "Crazy Heart," playing Bad Blake, an on-the-skids country singer in desperate need of redemption.

Sure, it's a classic Oscar-bait role. (Robert Duvall, who pops up in "Crazy Heart" as producer and supporting player, won an Academy Award more than 25 years ago for playing a similar character in "Tender Mercies.")

But just because it's a classic Oscar-bait role doesn't mean Bridges doesn't deserve an Oscar for his bone-deep, lived-in performance as a broken-down drunk trying to find the road home from oblivion.

On the contrary: Bridges has deserved an Oscar so many times for so many indelible portrayals, it's easy to take him for granted.

The dude not only abides, he does so in the most natural, unfussy, easy-as-breathing way, putting "Crazy Heart's" focus squarely on Bad Blake and his bad-news relationship with an indifferent world.

Once upon a time, Bad was a genuine country music star, a grizzled outlaw in the Willie Nelson/Waylon Jennings/Merle Haggard tradition. (Although it's probably no accident that Bridges most resembles his long-ago "Heaven's Gate" co-star, Kris Kristofferson.)

These days, however, slicker country acts -- exemplified by young protege Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) -- have displaced Bad on the charts and in the spotlight.

Besides, Bad's seen too many miles of bad road -- to say nothing of bad booze and bad marriages -- to maintain anything remotely resembling success.

These days, he travels the blue highways in a Chevy Suburban that's almost as beat-up as he is. And he packs 'em in at small-town bars and bowling alleys where, as he ruefully acknowledges, "It's good to be here" -- because, "at my age, it's good to be anywhere."

Bad may spend as much time downing rotgut (and, inevitably, throwing it up backstage) as he does singing.

Yet when he does sing, he proves he's not quite running on empty -- and that someday, someway, he'll find his way back home to the Bad Blake everyone remembers. Even him.

One possible inspiration presents itself when Bad shows up for a gig in Santa Fe and agrees to an interview with Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), an aspiring music journalist -- and bruised single mother -- who strikes a deeply personal chord with her subject.

Maybe it's because she's made her share of mistakes -- and knows she's all too capable of making more. Or maybe it's because Bad recognizes, even through his bleary, blood-shot eyes, that Jean might be just the good-hearted woman to save a good-timin' man for whom the good times ended long ago.

Making his directorial debut with this adaptation of Thomas Cobb's novel, actor-turned-filmmaker Scott Cooper takes us down a road we've traveled many times, both in real (Haggard, Hank Williams) and reel ("Pay Day," "Walk the Line") life.

In conveying Bad Blake's hardscrabble existence, Cooper demonstrates a keen eye for telling detail -- and a refreshingly low-key approach that allows the story to unfold at its own measured pace.

He also gives "Crazy Heart's" evocative soundtrack all the room it needs, and deserves. That's quite a bit, thanks to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" veteran T Bone Burnett (another of Bridges' "Heaven's Gate" collaborators -- finally, something good comes out of that notorious 1980 debacle). Written primarily by Burnett and Texas musician Stephen Bruton (who died of cancer at Burnett's home two weeks after finishing their "Crazy Heart" collaboration), the movie's songs not only reflect Bad Blake's rueful reality ("You never see it coming till it's gone," one lyric observes) but show that he holds the key to his own musical redemption. If only he could stay in key.

Most importantly, Cooper knows how -- and when -- to get out of the way and let his actors take center stage, whether for Gyllenhaal's wary, world-weary warmth or Farrell's pitch-perfect portrayal of a guy who revels in his stardom -- but knows, deep down, he probably doesn't deserve it.

Beyond deserving what you get, however, "Crazy Heart" makes another, equally important inquiry: Do you get what you deserve?

Watching Bad Blake wrestle with both questions goes to the heart of "Crazy Heart" -- and Bridges' subtle spellbinder of a performance.

Even in a role with more hambone potential than an Easter buffet, Bridges finds a way inside, around and through every cliche, transforming hackneyed details into deeply felt truths.

Whether it's an anguished moment of crisis (as when Bad lets Jean down, yet again) or a quiet moment in a fleabag motel room, nursing another drink, Bridges disappears inside Bad Blake, who's still trying to figure out how to keep the heartbreak in his music -- and keep it out of his life.

It's a familiar cinematic refrain, but as Bad remarks, "That's the way it is with the good ones -- you're sure you've heard them before."

We've seen elements of "Crazy Heart" before, too -- not only in the character of Bad Blake, but in Bridges' quiet virtuosity. It's one of his best performances, which is just another way of saying it couldn't be done any better.

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.