Tonight on “date night” Jess and I took in the amazing – “Walk the Line” (PG-13).

Growing up, I knew very little about Johnny Cash and/or his wife, June. It was in college that I began to learn about this legendary Jesus-follower. After school I picked up the RELEVANT book, “The Man Comes Around” and quickly devoured its pages while doing laundry at the local laundromat.

When we heard that this movie would be made, Jess and I promised to take time to see it as soon as we could.

The movie is more-than-I-expected. It shows the TERRIBLE side of Mr. Cash during his “playboy” days as a rock-n-roll star. It shows the evils of drugs and alcohol and infidelity. It shows those things as the evil things they are.

The movie shows Cash at his lowest point and at one point June exclaims, “God has given you a second chance.”

Sadly, the movie spends about another 5-10 minutes showing “part” of that “second chance” and the rest of the 2+ hours showing Cash’s “first chance” and his misuse of that chance.

We laughed in the movie, pondered life, death, and love, and left the theater with a “good taste” in our mouths! It was refreshing to see a “end-of-the-road” situation turn into something more and have a “happy, wholesome” ending.

I applaud James Mangold (director) and the writing team for portraying a story that needed to be told about the infamous Johnny Cash.

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are a dynamic pair on the screen – and the fact that they did all of the vocals throughout the movie impressed Jess and I to no end! There were a few times in the movie that I really thought they were playing actual Cash tracks, but the credits admitted that Phoenix and Witherspoon did ALL of the singing in the movie!

This is on my list of “to buy” films when it becomes available.