JOHNNY BE GOOD

REVIEWED - WALK THE LINE: PlayingJohnny Cash in Walk the Line, Joaquin Phoenix goes a significant step further than Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning performance in Ray last year. Whereas Foxx lip-synched to recordings of Ray Charles, Phoenix does all his own singing. Given that Cash's voice was so distinctive in its gravelled blend of defiance and mournfulness, this was a calculated risk and, to Phoenix's credit, he is credible, writes Michael Dwyer

Cash was born in Arkansas in 1930, two years after Charles was born in Georgia, and Cash died in 2003, nine months before Charles. Both were collaborating with the makers of their biopics, although neither singer lived to see the resulting film.

The structure of the two movies is remarkably similar. Each follows its protagonist from a poor upbringing and a hard rural life, through the loss of a sibling in an accident, the bus journey out of town to seek fame and fortune, the climb up the Billboard charts, and the fall into addiction that almost destroys the success achieved. And both films stop long before the careers and lives of their subjects ended.

Based on Cash's two volumes of autobiography, Walk the Line is so conventionally and simplistically scripted by director James Mangold and writer Gill Dennis that it offers little or nothing by way of illumination, insight or depth as it charts Cash's troubled times. While the film is certainly more satisfying than Mangold's most recent efforts (Identity, Kate & Leopold and Girl, Interrupted), its fascinating subject deserved a more adventurous and probing director.

Mangold's ace card is his casting, and the two leading actors go a long way towards papering over the cracks in the screenplay. Phoenix gets under the skin of the complex character that was The Man in Black, and Reese Witherspoon sparkles as vivacious singer June Carter, the object of his desire for decades before they finally married. The chemistry between them when they perform on stage together is electrifying, as is the recreation of Cash's celebrated show for the inmates of Folsom Prison.

The strong cast notably includes Ginnifer Goodwin as Cash's patient, quietly suffering first wife Vivian, Robert Patrick as his cold, disapproving father, and Dallas Roberts as Sun Records boss Sam Phillips, along with neat cameos from actors playing Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley.