"Walk Hard" a burning ring of satire

Admit this: When you see a troubled up-and-coming pop star these days — and there's no need for names — you think, Let's just save time and get to the overdose, because you're a cliché and you're boring me.

But the excesses and screw-ups of rock legend Dewey Cox ("Chicago" Oscar nominee John C. Reilly) make for yet another mostly hilarious adult comedy from co-writer/co-producer Judd Apatow, who's been busy redefining the genre recently.

His sendup of musical biopics such as "Walk the Line" is much broader, sillier and more absurdly self-aware than "Knocked Up" or "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," not to mention mercifully shorter by the half-hour most people agree his previous flicks could have lost. And while it's not as verbally raunchy as "Superbad," there's enough male frontal nudity that I won't be catching it in Imax 3-D.

If pain fuels the truest music, young Dewey gets an early start by accidentally chopping his super-prodigy brother in half with a machete instead of merely putting out an eye, and then going "smell-deaf" from the trauma. But he's a quick study of the blues, and by the time he's just 14 in the early 1950s (and played by the ridiculously adult Reilly), his music makes people get up and dance, rip off their clothes, fight — the whole satanic nine yards. Yet the bitter refrain he keeps hearing is from his hateful father (Raymond J. Barry): "The wrong kid died."

Dewey's assorted comic rises and falls through the decades encompass all the rock clichés, including meeting Elvis, meditating with the Beatles (dig the cool, animated LSD "Yellow Submarine" parody), addiction, jail, rehab, '70s disco variety show — with his own June Carter Cash, Darlene (Jenna Fischer, "The Office"), as his through line. A suggestive duet with her is one highlight. Along with Paul Rudd as John Lennon, lots of players from Apatow's troupe show up in little parts, as well as some big-time musicians — it would spoil things to name names — in cameos.

Once a second-fiddle to Will Ferrell ("Talladega Nights"), Reilly could be his curly-haired mock of a doppelganger in his first major leading role. And he's damn good at singing his own silly songs. But while it's just as easy to envision Ferrell chronically ripping sinks off walls in drug rampages, Reilly's goofballish lack of sarcasm strikes the right funny note.

Not that anyone's saying Johnny Cash was a goofball.

Mark Rahner: mrahner@seattletimes.com