Joe Strummer
(Credit: Sho Kikuchi/IFC First Take)
- Running time:
- 125 minutes
- Director:
- Julien Temple
- Genre:
- Documentary
- Official Movie Web Site:
- http://www.joestrummerthemovie.com/
- Movie Trailer:
- View Trailer
- Overall User Rating:
-
(2 ratings)
Big question: How much does the movie reveal about Strummer, the Clash and punk rock?
Skip it: Director Julien Temple (whose credits include “Earth Girls are Easy” and the Sex Pistols doc “The Filth and the Fury) was a friend of Strummer’s and his insider’s point of view both helps and hurts the film. Numerous friends, colleagues and celebrity fans of Strummer's open up for the cameras, but the one-note doc’s reverential tone wears thin over two hours of screen time. Adding to the frustration, Temple stubbornly refuses to identify any of the interview subjects—that’s OK when we’re hearing from Bono or Johnny Depp, but not so much for the long list of less recognizable faces.
Catch it: Strummer’s fans probably won’t mind all the idolizing, and at least Temple keeps things moving at a brisk pace more common in punk music than documentary filmmaking.
Bottom line: Loaded with great music and more stylish than your average installment of “Behind the Music,” it’s still not any more enlightening. Recommended for anyone well-versed in the Clash, but newbies would be better off with one of the band’s albums instead.
Bonus: One thing Strummer never had to worry about: how he looked. As a Strummer pal notes at one point, “That’s what was good about punk, if you were ugly you were in.”
[“Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten” is also available through “IFC In Theaters,” a video on demand service from select cable providers and DirecTV.]
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