Johnny Cash and the Ostrich

Bizarre “retelling” (or this seed of an idea that sprouted something quite WTF?) of an urban myth about Johnny Cash and his perils with an angry ostrich on his property in Tennessee, through the perspective of a hotel “manageress” in an English hotel room in 1983 while the Man in Black was on tour. This is a short film where a hotel staff (the manageress is under “observation”, a three month “trial” to see if she’s “up to snuff”) are privy to Cash in a state of serious duress, seemingly caused by an addiction to painkillers and booze (red wine, with all sorts of bottles shown throughout his room in disarray and run roughshod). Cash is sure that the reason he tossed out items from his hotel room (including a television set!) and why the room is in such rough shape is because he was battling it out with an angry ostrich looking to get even for his eating its mate after it froze to death on his Tennessee property! Cash, as wrote for the short film, often speaks in Bible reference, as if a reverend who can’t break from the pulpit, always acted in deadpan seriousness. So the manageress humors him, often sliding in witty barbs where she can in their oddball conversation, trying to avoid any more damage to the hotel room, eventually aided by a road manager who talks him into an ambulance in the back of the hotel. Cash had a cut hand, needing medical attention (and needed to sober out, as well), while entertaining his “guest” with back story on the ostriches on his property, regaling her with his “Museum of Cash”, inability to avoid the ostrich he planned to handle with a stick if necessary, and how that unfinished business somehow followed him to this Nottingham hotel in England. Skinner, as Cash, had an impossible task and he does his best to mimic the music icon, but it’s always clearly a performance. Phoenix had a similar problem with his interpretation of Cash, so you just have to either accept that these actors are giving it their best shot to offer us how they envision the man behind the persona, behind the legend, even if no one can quite bring alive the real Cash. Skinner gives us a rather self-serious but non-hostile Cash, quite aware of his issues with addiction but seemingly sure the ostrich had found him in the room. To steer away from as much trouble as she can, the manageress willingly listens astutely to him while he posits quite an outrageous history to her. For music aficionados or Cash enthusiasts, I’m not necessarily sure this will be of any real merit, but I’m sure there are plenty of experiences during quite a music career certain to have provided plenty of on-the-road anecdotes not too far-fetched as this light-hearted presentation. I think this might have worked better had Skinner’s face had never been shown…I thought early on, the way Cash was silhouetted and the director’s touches to avoid facial recognition were clever and creative, but eventually Skinner featured as Cash sort of dissolves the illusion. 2/5