Various - 'Walk the Line OST'

And the prize for the most pointless release of the year goes to... James Mangold's exemplary Cash bio-pic is a fitting tribute to the Mount Rushmore of country music but this accompanying soundtrack album flits past adequate to the door marked utterly disposable. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon shone as Johnny and June in the film and, most would agree, managed to carry off their singing parts with surprising panache. However, without the accompanying pictures, the music sounds like exactly what it is - Hollywood actors doing a passable impression of two giants of American music history. The world needs many things right now. What it does not require are characterless versions of Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, and I Walk the Line. Phoenix tries manfully but only a radical re-interpretation of Cash's singular songs would have made this worthwhile - and the less said about Tyler Hilton's Elvis impression on That's All Right, the better. [Duncan Forgan]