“How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, and in that chasm is no place for any man.”

-- Johnny Cash

In 1955 J.R. Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) walked into Memphis’ little known Sun Studios and started the journey to becoming a legend. With his blistering songs of heartache and survival, this lean, young guitar slinger created a sound distinctly his own, striking a chord across America that reverberated with the heart of a genius and the soul of an everyman. During the most volatile and self-destructive period of his life, roughly the years between his arrival at Sun and his legendary live performance at Folsom Prison in 1968, Johnny Cash would stare down his demons, emerging from this chaotic period as the “Man in Black” people across the globe know and love even today.

Based on Cash’s books Man in Black and Cash the Autobiography, writer-director James Mangold (“Cop Land,” “Identity”) takes on the legend with “Walk the Line.” Developed with the cooperation of both Cash and his wife June Carter over a period of seven years (up until their deaths in 2003), the movie follows this initial decade-plus in Johnny Cash’s life tracking his first travails in the music business, battles with drug addiction and, most of all, his complicated and hard-scrabble love affair with the ethereal June (Reese Witherspoon).

Coming just a year after Taylor Hackford’s “Ray,” comparisons between this and that Oscar-winning Jamie Foxx biopic are inevitable. On most levels, those comparisons are unfair. These are entirely different animals, Mangold’s direction far more intimate and mangy then Hackford’s glossy old-Hollywood style. But, be that as it may, none of this changes the fact both films are musical biographies of two of the most influential and important musical icons of the last century.

But whereas with “Ray” I was able to forgive the script’s unoriginality and Hackford’s slick stylings (thanks in large part to Foxx’s brilliance in the title role), I can’t help but feel a little bit under whelmed this time out. Mangold and Gil Dennis’ (“Riders of the Purple Sage”) script flips through time and space far too quickly, many stretches so choppy that just at the point I was starting to feel something passionate towards it the two would flip the scene so suddenly any emotional resonance was unceremoniously shattered.

Still, “Walk the Line” is a stirring and remarkably well made biography most of the way through. Scenes of Cash traveling cross-country with the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis (Wallon Malloy Payne), Waylen Jennings (played zestfully by his son Shooter Jennings), Roy Orbison (Jonathan Rice), Elvis Presley (Tyler Hilton) and – of course – June Carter are splendid. I was also quite taken with the early flashback sequences, a young Cash (Ridge Canipe) joyfully racing across the dusty backroads of Arkansas with his tragic older brother Jack (Lucas Till) making me smile, cry and want more.

Best of all, though, is the give-and-take, brutally fructuous relationship between Johnny and June. Looking at the mountains these two must climb to finally be together is astonishing. Whether it is her two failed marriages (fraught with Catholic guilt) or his dying relationship with jealous and needy first wife Vivian (and excellent Ginnifer Goodwin), the things keeping them apart aren’t minor. Add in Johnny’s drug addiction and June’s insecurities about her career, the fact these two ever end up together, let alone spend almost four decades as husband and wife, is absolutely mind-boggling.

Both Phoenix and Witherspoon are wonderful. That Oscar talk chasing the two of them isn’t a bunch of baloney. In a year with far too many open races to keep track of, count these two as virtual locks for nominations. In the case of the former, I can’t really say I have too much of a problem with that. Phoenix is just fine, sexily smoldering his way through the movie with an absorbing portrayal that’s hard to knock. That said, he never completely disappears into the role, and as good as his singing voice is it’s still impossible to not know in the back of your mind someone far more recognizable should be belting out these songs.

I have no such reservations about Witherspoon. Hands down, this is the best the actress has ever been - “Election” included – on film. Only in maybe half as many scenes as her much more (suitably) omnipresent costar, Witherspoon is still the heart and soul of Mangold’s picture. Frankly, her take on June Carter Cash blew me out of my seat. Funny, heartbreaking, whimsical, soulful, pained and loving, this is one of the best performances I’ve seen all year, a staggering reminder of just how talented this young woman really is.

Together, they’re both so good I wish I would have liked the movie more. Don’t get me wrong, “Walk the Line” is solidly crafted entertainment sure to please a heck of a lot of people. I’d even go so far as to bet right now Mangold and company are going to get a whole slew of Academy Award nominations, this just the type of old school Hollywood musical biography the majority voting for those Oscars love.

I do want more, though, and like the movie’s titular icon carving a narrow sliver of a road between light and dark looking for the sound that will make him a giant, I wanted a movie with the guts to do the very same thing. The performers get that, feel it to the very marrow of their bones. But Mangold and Dennis’ script never quite gets there, doesn’t equal their efforts. If anything, while the filmmakers try to walk a line inching towards greatness, somewhere along the way they missed a step, settling for a rather benign good instead. Too bad, because this would could have been great. More so, like the Man in Black, it could have been classic.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)