Get ready for the next huge trend in film making. With the success of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and now Motley Crue’s ‘The Dirt’, every band on this planet will now get a movie. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing by the way. It gives the bands a huge boost commercially and creates new fans of hard rock. And Motley Crue’s ‘The Dirt’ is no exception. The film has been a hit on Netflix and it’s easy to see why. It’s a fun hour and forty minutes of pure Motley debauchery accompanied with the dark consequences and drama that resulted from the band’s actions.
Before I get into all my criticisms of the film, I’m going to focus on what the movie does right. Which I would say eclipses what it doesn’t. First off, the acting is surprisingly good. It’s real and authentic without coming off as pretentious or cheap. The main four actors: Douglas Booth as Nikki Sixx, Daniel Webber as Vince Neil, Iwan Rheon as Mick Mars, and rapper Machine Gun Kelley as Tommy Lee; all perform their characters convincingly and confidently. Where the actors lack looking like their real life counterparts, they make up for it in their portrayals. Douglas Booth captures Nikki’s darkest moments with perfectly subtle intensity. Particularly as the best man in Tommy and Heather Locklear’s wedding scene. Major props to the make up person too. Daniel Webber portrays Vince’s vulnerable moments with surprisingly convincing emotion. I honestly wasn’t expecting the acting to be as good at it was. Rheon plays Mick Mars with perfect subtlety. And MGK is basically Tommy Lee in real life anyways so that worked out well. Not to mention Pete Davidson’s Tom Zutout. Tony Cavalero’s Ozzy is insanely creepy and accurate. The hotel pool scene perfectly captures the insane nature of rock ‘n roll during the 80’s. And honestly, if you’re not into that whole scene, you’re probably not going to like the movie very much. It’s a film made for the fans of the band. Not necessarily meant to be enjoyed by everyone.
Next I would say that the movie does cover most of the important, major moments of the book. While also throwing in some subtle quick characters from the book. Such as ‘Bullwinkle’ the squirter. It’s kind of like, ‘Oh they threw that person in there.’ However, many of the important moments are not exactly as accurate as they could have been. But it’s a biopic, not a documentary. There’s time limits and I’m sure the members of the band didn’t want to completely relive some of the darker moments in the band’s career on screen. I think that they did a good job balancing being accurate and being a movie. It’s not perfect though, and I think that some scenes could have been more effective if they were a little more like the reality of what happened. For example, Vince and Razzle’s car crash. I understand that there probably was some dulling of the incident because the members don’t want to look too bad. But the reality of what happened is that Vince was absolutely wasted. Not just lightly buzzed with a beer in his hand making a quick liquor store run. And the accident happened right around the corner of the house where the band was partying. Tommy Lee was involved because he was the first person to hear the accident and he came rushing to help. And the accident was way more brutal in real life. The movie just kind of skipped over all that intensity that could have served it better.
Also, there are some weird timeline inaccuracies going on. While the band is rehearsing for their upcoming ‘Theater of Pain’ tour in ’85, Vince’s wife shows up with their daughter Skyler. And then about ten years later Skylar’s dying of cancer but it’s the same aged girl. It is true that Skyler was just a little girl when she passed, and the film shows that. But she apparently didn’t age for ten years. She wasn’t born during the band’s 1985 heyday. These are semi-minor details though. The important thing is that the film did show the emotion that Vince felt during the tumultuous few years in the mid 90’s that he had. But it wasn’t completely down and out for Vince during those years. He did have a fairly successful, short lived, solo career. And his debut album ‘Exposed’ is pretty damn good actually. I wish the film spent more time during those years and explored the Corabi era when he replace Vince on vocals. It would have behooved the movie to include Corabi as a more prominent character. Not to mention how good the self titled album is. But they just kind of brushed those years off, got Vince back in the band with a simple ‘welcome back’ conversation and went out on their ’98 greatest hits tour. Completely skipping over the ‘Generation Swine’ sessions. I would have loved to have seen those scenes. As the making of the album was a very frustrating time for the band. It could have provided some nice dramatic scenes. Also, Vince wasn’t simply welcomed back into the band. It’s was a long and arduous journey that the record company forced in order to make the most money off of the band. What was also arduous was getting the rights back to their music from Epic records. Tom Zutout didn’t simply hand over the rights at the Rainbow Bar and Grill, shake Nikki’s hand and call it a day.
And that’s really my final critique of the movie. It’s simply too short. As a fan I would have liked to see more. But I also think that general audiences would have enjoyed a more epic film. Motley Crue’s story is an epic, and the movie should have been treated as such. Or at least tried to present the story as a mini series. We didn’t even meet Pamela Anderson. Think of all the material that could have come out of Pam and Tommy’s relationship. Not to mention Nikki’s affair with drummer Samantha Maloney, who replaced Randy Castillo, who replaced Tommy Lee for the ‘New Tattoo’ album and tour. I would have been great to see those years and have the film end with the beginning of the ‘Red, White and Crue’ tour in 2005. Which really was the beginning of the band riding off into the sunset together a la ‘Indiana Jones.’ I think that would have been a much more complete and satisfying experience if we got all that story in the movie.
Overall though, the movie is pretty good. It moves along nicely and like I said, the actors really do an excellent job of capturing their characters. All of the most important elements are in there: How the band formed, what their points of view are, what the vulnerabilities are for each member, and how they overcame their obstacles. Yes, there’s plenty of inaccuracies, such as how manager Doc Magee got fired. But in the bigger picture they’re mostly minor details. The only one that really stuck out was Skyler Neil’s weird timeline. I would say that this movie is one for the fans. It’s an interesting bio pic if you grew up in the era or are a fan of it. But if you’re not a Motley Crue fan or a fan of the 80’s Sunset Strip scene, you’re probably not going to like the film. The critics certainly didn’t. But then again, they never liked Motley Crue to begin with. So screw ’em and enjoy the movie. Full on Motley style!! The question now is will the band break their cease and desist tour contract they signed in 2015?
