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'Walk the Line': Frank biopic bites off too much

Walk the Line, the new film biography of singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, is uncannily similar to last year's Oscar-nominated movie Ray, about Ray Charles. And that is both the good news and the bad.

The primary asset of each film is a remarkable leading performance, first by Jamie Foxx as the blind blues pianist and now by Joaquin Phoenix as the Man in Black. Phoenix not only has Cash's gestures down cold — the humble manner offset by a swagger, the crooked smile and a dark, brooding nature — but he also does a more than passable vocal imitation on the many Cash songs he covers.

20th Century Fox 'Walk the Line' B- The verdict: A surface-deep, too conventional biography of Cash, with a standout performance by Phoenix. Director: James Mangold Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Shelby Lynne, Robert Patrick Run time: 135 minutes Release date: November 18, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for some language, thematic material and depiction of drug dependency. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

But both films make the mistake of trying to encompass too much of their subjects' lives and careers, a foolhardy effort that leads — in the case of Walk the Line — to a surface-deep treatment that jumps several years at a time and settles for generic montages of Cash's road tours. For a man who prided himself on being a maverick, his life is played out on film awfully conventionally.

Nor is Walk the Line helped by the numerous parallels to Ray's life that feel like so much deja vu. First and foremost, there is a horrible accidental death of his brother at a young age which, rightly or wrongly, is depicted as a primal specter haunting him.

Then there is the womanizing and the drug use, which threaten to halt his stellar performance career until he kicks both habits and emerges triumphant to cement his place in the public eye. Both films had the benefit of the participation of their subjects until the time of their deaths, and both show signs of frankness, but only up to a point.

Walk the Line is based on a pair of autobiographies by Cash, shaped into a screenplay by director James Mangold and Gill Dennis that uses his tumultuous, enduring romance with country singing star June Carter as its through line. The songbirds meet cute backstage at a concert, when June gets her dress caught on his guitar strings, and a romantic spark begins to flicker even though they are married to others.

They begin touring together and singing the occasional duet, while she deflects his courtly advances until succumbing in a Las Vegas hotel. Meanwhile, Cash is succumbing to a dependence on alcohol and amphetamines that threatens his health and livelihood.

Long a champion of the incarcerated for his song Folsom Prison Blues, written from his imagination and a melodramatic film he saw while in the Air Force in the early '50s, Cash would eventually know jail firsthand after being busted for pill possession by Texas police.

Twice-divorced June is depicted as exasperated by his addiction, but she stands by her man and helps him dry out before bowing to his pressure to marry Cash in a mid-concert public proposal.

A brunette Reese Witherspoon makes a sassy, spunky June with occasional dramatic moments. She handles her most serious role to date well enough, if not really on a par with Phoenix. She too does her own singing and is more than adequate, with stage presence to spare. Ginnifer Goodwin takes the less dimensional assignment of Cash's first wife, Vivian, generally dismissed as a scold and a whiner.

Judging from the acceptance of Ray, audiences presumably enjoy seeing their show business heroes portrayed on screen, warts and all, as long as the stories end happily. So expect Walk the Line to be embraced by moviegoers and Phoenix to earn one of the best actor Oscar nominations.

Then when you are ready for a truly first-rate biopic, try Capote or Good Night, and Good Luck.