I have to admit straight off the bat that I don't like Metallica. Their albums are to me the antithesis of quality, substituting deafening noise and retarded lyrics for anything that might be considered musical. That they've sold so many albums is not a surprise (Steps also sold in the millions it's no real guide), but there must be something more to them, something tangible that has made Metallica the rock Gods of the last two decades.
While Some Kind of Monster originally set out to document this what it actually uncovered was far more interesting: a group of disparate people in total meltdown. As voyeurism it doesn't get much better than seeing rich, famous people being utterly pathetic and anything but civil to one another. As if we needed anymore reminding in these days of Heat magazine, VH-1 and knickerless pop princesses.
The documentary begins after the exit of long-time Metallica bassist Jason Newsted, kicked out for expressing an interest in his own side projects. With the band in turmoil due to this act emotions and long-repressed hatreds come to the fore, and lead singer Hetfield and drummer Ulrich embark on the mother of all pissing contests. Hetfield goes into rehab, which screws the bands new album up, and the whole thing descends into a 2-year drag-on, all faithfully caught in Berlinger and Sinofsky's trusty lens.
That the band would not only have allowed such an intimate exposure of their lives, but also to have continued it onwards through their most unsettled period, is a testament to either their bravery, their stupidity, or their immense ego. None of them come out of it well: Hetfield goes from a drunk to a born-again who refuses to work more than a few hours a day; Ulrich shows himself to be the spiteful, selfish little toad everyone always presumed he was; and Kirk Hammett is little more than an effeminate third wheel who everyone ignores. On top of this the band hires a psychologist (the incomprehensibly useless Phil Towle) who proceeds to suck them dry to the tune of $40,000 a month. If there was ever more evidence needed of the gullibility and carelessness of the super-rich, then this is it.
Unsurprisingly the documentary's scenes live and die by how crazy the bandmembers are to each other and various inanimate objects. While it was quite nice to see them all working together in harmony this utopia quickly implodes and the amount of interest the viewer shows is measured by the amount of swearing, insane situations, childish name-calling and (more often in Ulrich's case than anyone else) total pathetic ridiculousness the band members display. This overshadows what would otherwise be a nicely chronological representation of the difficulties of making an album quickly, complete with day clock, and the musical stagnation of an aging rock band. As such I can only give it an average 3 star rating. Throw in some more tantrums and Ulrich's mad as a fish father, and it might have had 4. |
