"Metallica - Some Kind of Anger"

As has been widely reported in the media over the last couple of years, Metallica have been on the verge of falling apart, and judging from this 2 1/2 hour documentary they're nowhere near a safe bet yet. Not much of pity, mind you, since they haven't made a decent record since 88's "... And Justice for All" (or "Ride the Lightning" in '84, if you want to be really old school), but that doesn't make this movie less fun to watch. If you loved "Spinal Tap", there are plenty of moments here to make you smirk, as we watch one of the world's biggest rock bands break down.
There are the studio jam sessions where the band is desperately trying to come up with songs, finding absolutely nothing, which becomes ever clearer in their facial expressions, and of course there are the much talked about therapeutic sessions where the band members make big sissies of themselves, with Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield brushing off their egos while Kirk Hammett, the poor little gay indian, muses about trying to suppress his ego to become more zen. The only really likeable character here is Lars Ulrich's father Torben, who, on being asked his honest opinion of the
early demo recordings for the album that became "St. Anger", advises them to press the delete button and hold it down until everything is gone. More than anything else, this is a movie about spoiled rock stars, about an industry of therapy brought on by all your Ricki Lakes and Dr. Phils, and the big commercial collossus a band like Metallica has become, that makes it so hard to stop, even though it's painfully obvious to everyone that that would be the only reasonable solution. All filmed and edited with dry humour, though mercifully free of sarcasm, and thus thankfully approved by Metallica themselves. As I think Lawrence of Felt said: "Hey, breaking up is an idea that occured to far too few bands, mostly the wrong ones."

Jon A