Versatile actor Dennis Quaid was a good choice as 'wild one' Jerry Lee Lewis. He has long since been one of my favorite actors and does the film justice. Winona Ryder was also excellent as his 13-year old cousin. Lively and vibrant, this was an enjoyable musical comedy drama.

If you're looking for something the quality of La Bamba, The Buddy Holly Story or I Walk the Line you'll be extremely disappointed. The acting in this film isn't just over the top it's painfully awful to watch. The fake Southern Accents make it even worse if that were possible. I suppose one could find a modicum of entertainment in this disaster if you were looking for a good laugh but that's about all it will provide you.

As a child in rural Louisiana, Jerry Lee Lewis is entranced by black music. In 1956 Memphis, Jerry (Dennis Quaid) moves in with his cousin Rusty Brown's family including his daughter Myra Gale Brown (Winona Ryder). Sam Phillips of Sun Records, who signed Elvis, signs Jerry. His cousin Jimmy Swaggart (Alec Baldwin) tries to get him to serve God. He marries 13-year-old Myra after already married twice. It becomes a scandal during a 1958 British tour.This is a fun light rock-and-roll movie with a great manic performance by Dennis Quaid. The drama is backloaded with the scandal well into the second half. This has great music. A more dramatic story could be done concentrating not on his music but on his personal life and marriages. This is nevertheless a fun rock biopic and a memorable performance.

About the time Myra Gale Brown would have been worrying about the hydrogen bomb destroying mankind, I was in parochial school doing duck and cover drills for the same reason. So even while Jerry Lee Lewis was becoming the Wild Man of Rock and Roll, I don't recall what a stir he was causing with his 'savage animal rhythms' back in 1957. What I do know is that it's impossible to sit still with a whole lotta shaking going on, and the rock and roll world is a lot better off for Jerry Lee having made his contribution.With that said, the film comes across as somewhat disappointing. Maybe it's Dennis Quaid's pouty and exaggerated portrayal, or maybe it's the severely restricted view one gets of virtually a single year in the life of the rock star. Perhaps a treatment in the style of "The Buddy Holly Story" or "La Bamba" might have fleshed out the singer a little better, instead of subjecting us to the one dimensional character that appears here from open to close. Some reviewers on this board insist that this was Jerry Lee right from the get-go, but I find it hard to believe that his life wasn't more nuanced than the picture we get here. Not only that, but if comparisons were going to be drawn along side Elvis and Chuck Berry, then maybe we could have seen some interaction between Jerry and his contemporaries instead of the flip brush off he gave them in the story. Jerry and Berry jamming would have been a whole lot more fun to watch.But if you dig Jerry Lee's style of manic raunch and roll, you won't hear any better than what's on display in "Great Balls of Fire". Jerry Lee himself provides the vocal power to Quaid's ferocious delivery, the only part of his over the top performance that rings true throughout the film.