It almost sounds like a “Saturday Night Live” skit: Metallica does group therapy and gets in touch with their feelings. But it’s not a joke; it’s a documentary. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster is a surreal look at the band’s struggle to complete an album. The band is in turmoil as they start the recording process — the bassist has just left to pursue other projects (they have an almost Spinal Tap-ian inability to retain bassists), and lead singer James Hetfield is on the verge of disappearing into rehab for almost a year — so their management company suggests they hire therapist/”performance coach” Phil Towle to help them work through some issues.
Although it’s nearly 2 ½ hours long, the film, by documentarians Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger (who did Brother’s Keeper and Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills), kept my interest much more than either Fahrenheit 9/11 or The Corporation did, and I’m not a Metallica fan.
Much of the humor in the film comes from seeing these headbangers earnestly spouting psychobabble like, “I hear what you’re saying, and I embrace the differences between us, but this is what I’m feeling now…” At the same time, you feel bad for laughing, because these guys are obviously going through some serious emotions. Towle must be more competent than he appears (he would pretty much have to be, because he comes off as a starfucker and the stereotypical therapist who basically just says, “And how do you feel about that?”).
You really get to know the three band members over the course of the film; it’s especially interesting to see how their attitudes toward the therapy change. Seeing the band take the stage, near the end of the film, at an MTV show in their honor brought a genuine smile to my face, even if the music itself brought something of an ache to my head.
Sadly, Landmark
Theatres was experiencing a Regal-esque
night. First, the theater manager admitted to us that they had dropped
the first reel of the film on the floor, and it got dirty, so he warned
us that the picture might not be great for the first 15 minutes or so.
He failed to warn us, however, that the film would stop every 15 minutes,
sometimes for several minutes at a stretch. When it started up again,
invariably, the sound would be off. The theater lights came on every
time the film stopped and then stayed on; just as someone finally
decided to turn them off, the film would stop again, and the lights would
come back on. The film even ran upside down for a few seconds.
Several people left, fed up, after the first few screw-ups. Of course,
it was a free preview, so it’s not like you could ask for your money back.
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