Published: August 06, 2008 04:26 pm            

MOVIES: Toby Keith jumps to the big screen

Country crooner Toby Keith is pleased with his big-screen writing debut, even if not every detail in the movie is accurate.

Briton Claire Forlani was cast as the romantic interest in ’Beer For My Horses,’ the movie Keith co-wrote and based on his hit single of the same name. While she did a good job in speaking with a Southern accent, Keith said during a recent phone interview that it wasn’t perfect.

’She wasn’t as Texan or Oklahoman as she could have been,’ he said of her dialect. ’She’s more South Carolinian or from the East Coast. But for not having a dialogue coach and just playing off it on her own, she did a great job.’

Keith feels the same way about the film, which he co-wrote with country singer/comedian Rodney Carrington. Set in Oklahoma, the film follows two sheriff’s deputies (Keith and Carrington) who set out to rescue a kidnapped woman (Forlani) who was taken to Mexico by a drug lord seeking revenge on the police, who arrested his brother.

The idea for the movie came about when Keith shot the music video for the song ’Beer For My Horses,’ which was a No. 1 song for six weeks in 2003. Having shot the action-style video, Keith said he envisioned doing a movie in a similar vein, along the lines of the road comedies he enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s.

After working on the script for a couple years, which had morphed into more of an action movie, Keith couldn’t get happy with the final product. While working on the feature film ’Broken Bridges’ in 2006, it was an encounter with co-star Burt Reynolds ’ who was behind many of the films Keith idolized in his youth ’ who set him on the right path.

’Burt told me, ’You have to be charming or dangerous or both to make a living doing that,’’ Keith said. ’I told him, ’I can be charming, but I’m not dangerous.’ He said to me, ’You can if you work on it.’’

After that is when Keith turned for help to Carrington, who worked to inject more comedic elements into the movie. In addition to Forlani, the duo recruited veteran talent such as Barry Corbin, Tom Skerritt, Willie Nelson and Ted Nugent to round out the cast.

Even though coordinating schedules was tough, Keith said the work was worth it.

’You’d like to have more time with each of those actors and actress ... but you’re so busy,’ he said. ’It’s hard to find a police story anymore that you haven’t seen before. It’s everything I wanted it to be and more.’

Between running the publicity gauntlet to promote ’Horses’ and continuing his ’Biggest & Baddest Tour,’ Keith doesn’t have much time to think about what to do next. Instead, he’s waiting and hoping that the film is well-received by his fans.

’This part ain’t up to us. We’ve taken care of all the parts we can take care of. We just have to see now if it’s something the fans want to see,’ he said. ’We didn’t make this to change the way Hollywood does stuff. We did this to have fun and make an hour and a half music video.’



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