Was the right call to let the Mötley Crüe fan review this film? Well, yes and no.
The problem with a biopic about one of your favorite bands is that they need to get every detail right. If they change stuff, there better be a damn good reason for it. And they need to give every band member their share due, something Straight Outta Compton and Bohemian Blasphemy (I think that was the title) had problems with. And with a band and a book (which this film is based on) as decadent and dirty as Mötley Crüe, I really needed this to live up to the hype.
Luckily, for the most part, it does.
Let’s get the real crappy stuff out of the way first; I am in no way condoning the terrible things this band did to people (mostly women) in the 1980s. We can all agree it was wrong, they will admit it was wrong, and no amount of bitching about it is ever going to change what happened nearly 40 years ago. I’ve seen a lot of early buzz saying this movie should never have been made because of what the band did, and if it did get made, that stuff needs to be changed, which is asinine.
Luckily, some of the more tasteless features have been removed (and they didn’t really need to be shown anyway). But these guys slept with a lot of women, drank heavily and did an abundance of drugs and to change that would change the band. Yeah, there are some gross out moments (the beginning doesn’t shed a beautiful light on one of Tommy’s exes very highly) and a lot of women are naked in the film, but it’s not as though they are handled as people who were taken advantage of. I guess what I’m trying to say is: in a movie with no political agenda — leave your political agenda out of it.
Onto the movie itself.
Mötley Crüe is Nikki Sixx (Douglas Booth), the troubled, drugg addict bassist; Vince Neil (Daniel Webber), the sleazy, man-whore of a lead singer;Mick Mars (Iwan Rheon), the most underrated guitarist of all-time; and Tommy Lee (Colson Baker), the spazzy drummer. These four men were brought together by complete accident and formed one of the greatest glam metal bands of all-time. From their early days dressing like characters from Mad Max to their early ’90s breakup, The Dirt covers a good portion of what makes this band THE BAND. Director Jeff Tremaine, best known for Jackass, crafts a very interesting dynamic, forcing the members of the band to be, well, members of Jackass, as they navigate a world of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Each member truly embodies their character. Booth plays the Nikki Sixx with such vigor, you’d swear you’re still seeing the same animal who needed to make it as big as possible in 1981. Webber as Neil is a…live wire (I had to), electrifying every moment he’s on screen with his high pitched vocals and lady’s man persona. Rheon plays Mars to stoic perfection, being the grumpy old man who just wants to shred on his guitar.
But the real revelation is Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly) as Tommy Lee, who plays the legendary drummer to perfection. Every ounce of Baker’s will went into making him as close to Lee as possible, and as someone who can’t stand Machine Gun Kelly, that’s a high compliment. I was ready to hate him, but I was wrong — he was actually amazing. These four are all highlighted equally (Sixx may get a little more screen time), as the viewer is forced to watch them deal with marriage, divorce, drugs, fights, fires, overdoses, medical treatments and death.
These become the biggest letdown of the film; in a book that covers the lives of these guys from whenever the hell Mick Mars was born (it’s still unknown), to the band’s beginnings in 1981, to 2001 (when the book was released), it’s hard to streamline that into a 108 minute film. They need to take liberties, some of which work and others that do not. For instance, having Vince’s daughter be born during Theater of Pain (1985) but dying when John Corabi joins the band in 1993 but still somehow dying at age 4 doesn’t make a lot of sense. The deals with Elektra Records’ Tom Zutaut (played by a very subdued Pete Davidson) and the meeting and firing of manager Doc McGhee (David Costabile) didn’t go the way they are portrayed in the film, but the characters cleverly break the fourth wall, saying it didn’t happen this way, but we needed to put them in the movie somehow.
The film also misses a lot of stuff, but honestly, it’s a 400-page book with a lot of interesting information that isn’t going to translate to film well. Does anyone really care about the five pages Nikki went on a drug binge and then slept with some random girl? Probably not. But the greatest hits are there: the band’s formation, Vince Neil’s car accident which took the life of Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle, the Bullwinkle scene (if you’ve read the book, you’ll know), and Nikki’s overdose. Some people will say, “that’s not exactly how these things happened”, but I ask, how do you really know since these guys were so loaded all the time, they don’t even truly remember?
The Dirt isn’t going to make everyone happy. It’s probably going to piss a lot of people off — much like the band did. Yes, they left some stuff out and there are a few problems with it montaging too much. But when this film nails it, it nails it.
The actors actually play their instruments — Webber worked with a coach to sing like Neil, and they mixed it in with Neil’s actual vocals to create the sound. (Unlike Bohemian Rhapsody, which is the result of just putting Queen’s Greatest Hits on the screen and calling it a day. Okay, okay, I won’t mention that damn movie anymore).
Your enjoyment of The Dirt will come down to three things: your love for Mötley Crüe, your enjoyment of 1980s Hollywood and your ability to leave your baggage at the door. As someone who LOVES this band (I am named after the drummer after all, thanks Mom and Dad), I did love it, even if I see some problems with it. We’ll never get a perfect biopic about a rock band, but this one is as fun as they come.
P.S.: The Ozzy and David Lee Roth scenes are amazing and exactly how they are portrayed in the book. Should be good enough for you.
