Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 28, 2018

Portland, Oregon is divided into quadrants, with the epicenter being the intersection of Burnside Street, which runs east-west, and the Willamette River, which runs north-south (in the trivia department, the Willamette is one of few United States rivers which flows from the south to the north, eventually joining the Columbia on its westward course toward the Pacific Ocean). Therefore, the area north of Burnside and west of the Willamette is understandably called Northwest, with the added little datapoint that the first score or so of streets are alphabetical, with Couch, Davis and Everett (for example) following Burnside to the north. There are two main shopping areas in Northwest, one on 21st Avenue (that’s 21 blocks west of the Willamette, for those who are keeping score), and, a bit more developed, two blocks further west on 23rd. That area has been incredibly gentrified over the past several years, but back in the late 1970s and early 1980s it was kind of a hippie (as opposed to hipster) hangout, where many struggling young artists (including myself) lived. It was a regular occurrence for those of us who lived in Northwest back in the day to see John Callahan tooling around in his motorized wheelchair, frequently on NW 23rd or NW 21st, and just as often holding court or something similar at locations as unlikely as a 7-11 or corner eating and drinking establishment. Even given his now famous paralysis which kept him confined to his chair and at times contributed to an occasionally unkempt appearance, Callahan was a kind of odd looking and even sounding fellow, with a bright shock of yellow-orange hair and a somewhat pock marked face, along with a slightly raspy voice. But for anyone who was a fan of his often provocative if simultaneously almost weirdly sweet cartoons which appeared in local newspaper Willamette Week, he was a local icon, even before he had attained a more global reputation.

Those of us who got to know Callahan in the late seventies or early eighties were presented with a fait accompli of sorts, in terms of a guy already confined to a wheelchair and dealing with the vagaries of fate as best he could. Callahan was already a local celebrity in Portland by then, courtesy of his regular cartoons in Willamette Week, but Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot wisely provides some context to the cartoonist's tale, much of it within the outlines of Callahan coming to terms with both his alcoholism and resultant paralysis courtesy of Twelve Step meetings. That element introduces Donnie Green (Jonah Hill), who becomes Callahan's main "friend of Bill's", and who mentors Callahan through some roiling emotional issues, many courtesy of the fact that Callahan was put up for adoption by his unwed Catholic mother.

The context given Callahan in this film certainly provides ample evidence of a wounded soul seeking and maybe even finding salvation, but there's a curiously overwrought tendency at times to at least parts of the film. For example, Callahan gets into screaming matches with a state disability worker named Suzanne (Carrie Brownstein), but then goes to make amends with her as part of his Twelve Step process, in what plays like a kind of rote treatment of ideas in several Twelve Step themed films or television outings. A framing device of sorts (this film actually has framing devices within framing devices, with a kind of deliberately disjunctive chronology) includes Callahan giving a talk at what looks like Portland's Schnitzer theater, where a bunch of various characters, including Suzanne, all sit in rapt attention, as if to suggest real healing may come when you're a major celebrity giving a speech in front of a well heeled audience. Another kind of odd thing that Gus Van Sant's screenplay repeatedly offers, including in this very sequence, is Callahan giving the same comments about various issues over and over again (like the "three" things he knows about his mother), in what seems to suggest Callahan had "rehearsed" answers or something like that.

The film also offers Rooney Mara as Callahan's ostensible love interest Annu, and there are some sweet interchanges between the characters, even if Annu really seems to be more of a traditional placeholder than an actual fleshed out character. A major reveal about Donnie late in the film is almost handled discursively, and perhaps attains more power as a result of that. Phoenix does a great job as the "character" of Callahan, but I'm not completely certain Van Sant's intermittently hagiographic approach toward Callahan is able to really penetrate the darker side of a man haunted by mistakes.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf might have liked Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot just a bit more than I did. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The IMDb lists Arri Alexa cameras as having been utilized on the shoot, and they also specify a 4K DI, which I frankly find a little surprising, since the film's appearance on Blu-ray, while completely solid, isn't overwhelmingly impressive in my estimation. Van Sant and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt have graded quite a few sequences to a kind of peach yellow color, something that tends to add a kind of gauzy softness to shots. That said, there are a number of extreme close-ups, especially of Phoenix's face, that provide ample fine detail levels, and detail levels on things like Donnie's velour-ish jacket are typically excellent in decent lighting conditions. The peach(ish) grading tends to slightly blanch the palette at times, but in more natural moments, things vary rather widely between some sunny (southern California) moments and grayer, much wetter (Portland) sequences.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that is, like the video component, completely workmanlike if never mind blowingly impressive. The film relies on a lot of small scale dialogue scenes, including several "meetings" of various sizes and shapes, and as such, surround activity is sometimes limited to hall and/or room ambience and the occasional environmental effect. The scene at the Portland concert hall does feature a bit of surround activity courtesy of the large audience's reactions to Callahan's comments. Some outdoor moments, including the interstitial scenes of Callahan sharing some of his cartoons with some skateboarders who help him after he's a bit of a spill, can also offer discrete placement of environmental effects, but this is generally a kind of tamped down, conservative mix. Dialogue is always presented cleanly and clearly, and underscore and source cues resonate with fine fidelity.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Inside the Accident (1080p; 3:28) offers Gus Van Sant and other crew members discussing a key sequence in the film.


• Inside the Hospital (1080p; 4:26) does much the same service for the hospital sequences of the film.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kind of humorously, this is now the second Portland-centric film that I've joked should have had some noted Hollywood celebrity portraying my wife. As I mentioned in the I, Tonya Blu-ray review, my wife was a news anchor at one of the stations which was at the forefront of breaking (no pun intended) the Tonya Harding — Nancy Kerrigan story back in the day, and she also had a relationship with Callahan that I'll let her reveal in her memoirs, should she choose to write them. But for those who only know Callahan through his cartoons, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot is itself rather tenderhearted if occasionally a bit mawkish, with Gus Van Sant sometimes struggling to find the right balance between humor and pathos. Phoenix admirably captures some of the vulnerability and steeliness that were part and parcel of Callahan's personality. Technical merits are solid, and Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot comes Recommended.