Borrowing the name of a Clash song with which it has nothing in common, this generic riff on the Crazy Heart template by writer/director David M. Rosenthal (Falling Up) also cribs from Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, as self-professed "drunken lout" Ethan Brand (Junebug's Alessandro Nivola) is forced to care for Janie Jones (Little Miss Sunshine herself, Abigail Breslin), the daughter he never knew he had. Problem is, he's on the road with his soon-to-split band when the strung-out groupie (Elisabeth Shue) he can't (or doesn't want to) remember dumps the musically gifted 13-year-old in his care. How do we know she has talent? Why, Rosenthal never misses an opportunity to have her strum a guitar and sing during moments of stress — which is pretty much all the time, given her parentage. At least her songs aren't half bad (Gemma Hayes wrote for Breslin; Nivola's tunes come courtesy of Eef Barzelay), if not particularly memorable. Kind of like the film.
