THE DIRT. (2019) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

THE DIRT. (2019) DIRECTED BY JEFF TREMAINE.

BASED ON THE BOOK THE DIRT: CONFESSIONS OF THE WORLD’S MOST NOTORIOUS ROCK BAND BY NEIL STRAUSS, NIKKI SIXX, TOMMY LEE, VINCE JONES AND MICK MARS.

STARRING DOUGLAS BOOTH, COLSON BAKER, DANIEL WEBBER, IWAN RHEON AND PETE DAVIDSON.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This Netflix film, a music biopic, has had its share of bad reviews, but I bloody love it. I’ve watched it about four times already since finding out about it last year. It’s the story of Motley Crue- excuse the absence of umlauts, or pairs of little dots, atop the o in Motley and the u in Crue; I can’t figure out how to make them on my laptop.

Motley Crue were one of the great ‘hair’ bands of the ‘Eighties. I wasn’t a fan back in the day because I was into the New Romantics at the time, but now I’m older I have massive appreciation for a good old ‘hair’ band, like these guys and Guns’ n’ Roses and, my own particular favourite, Whitesnake, fronted by Big Ride, David Coverdale.

Randy Guzman of NEWSDAY said of the film, and I agree, that it’s ‘a funny, foul-mouthed, whirlwind ride through one of the last great eras in rock history, when wretched excess was part of the job description and bad behaviour was a badge of honor.’ He means throwing televisions out of hotel rooms, getting high every night and mooning respectable people at every possible opportunity, of course.

Anyway, the band is formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx, who has just left his band London after a falling-out. I think it’s the kind where punches get thrown. He is joined by headcase drummer Tommy Lee, guitarist Mick Mars and finally cover band singer Vince Neil.

After the inevitably rocky start, they get signed to Elektra Records by newbie executive Tom Zutaut, and the rest, as they say, is history. They start living a life of the above-mentioned excess and bad behaviour immediately, almost as if making up for lost time. Fucking anything that moves and taking every mind-bending drug known to man is, of course, top of the agenda.

Douglas Booth, a criminally handsome English musician and actor who has previously played both Boy George and Pip from GREAT EXPECTATIONS on the small screen, is brilliant, and very easy on the eye, as Nikki Sixx.

Constantly trying to fill the gaping hole left by the lack of a loving family, he becomes addicted to heroin and nearly dies from it, all the while fucking his band-mates’ girlfriends and dressing like a rainbow on crack cocaine, lol.

Colson Baker, aka rapper Machine Gun Kelly (my kids know him but I’ve never heard of him), plays Tommy Lee, the drummer. While he seems easy-going and fun-loving, he comes across as a head-the-ball jerk who doesn’t care if he ruins things for other people just so long as he has fun while he’s high as a kite.

He’s in love with being in love, and marries actress Heather Locklear from DYNASTY in the film. He also marries Pamela Anderson within four days of meeting her, but that happens later on.

Mick Mars, played by Iwan Rheon, is my favourite Motley Crue member just going by the film. Rheon plays him as a delightfully cranky fucker who suffers from a degenerative bone disease and doesn’t have time to waste throwing tellies out of hotel room windows; he just wants to play the fucking music, man, and rightly so. He’s also the brains behind the band’s name; Nikki Sixx wanted to called it XMass, as in Christmas…!

Vince Neil, played by Daniel Webber, is the last of the Crue to come on board. His is not a happy lot. He’s the reckless driver of the car that kills his passenger, Razzle the drummer from Finnish metal band Hanoi Rocks, in 1984, and he pays out big money to avoid serving the full thirty days of his jail sentence. Oh dear, not cool. I have a question. If Razzle is Finnish, how come he sounds English and talks like he’s straight out of Spinal Tap…?

Vince’s four-year old daughter Skylar, beautifully played by tiny actress Kamryn Ragsdale, dies of bone cancer in 1995, which devastates Vince and leads to his hiatus from the band. His band members have no choice but to replace him (with John Corabi) until he’s ready to come back.

Three Random Things now. Pete Davidson is great as the Man from Elektra Records who snaps up Motley Crue while refusing a free under-the-table blowjob, lol. Ozzy Osbourne, played by Tony Cavalero, makes an absolute holy show of himself in the film. He’s the perfect example of How Not To End Up When You’re A Rock Star, and is unutterably pitiful and tragic to the viewer’s eye. The costumes are terrific and over-the-top and the music is fantastic.

Though some truly awful things happen in the film, you end up feeling this real sense of camaraderie with the band and you really want things to work out well for them. You’ll probably be surprised, like I was, by their eventual longevity, especially when you consider how hellbent they seemed on destroying themselves back in the day.

My kids bought me the book, incidentally, for Mother’s Day: THE DIRT: CONFESSIONS OF THE WORLD’S MOST NOTORIOUS ROCK BAND, and it’s a gorgeous thick read. The film is great fun, anyway. You should definitely try to catch it if you’re a fan of the old ‘hair’ bands. Rock on, dudes. Rock on…