My Review of 'The Dirt'

There's been this huge surge of biographies of famous bands and singers lately. Last year's Bohemian Rhapsody even won awards. There's a few more coming down the pipeline. I guess Netflix saw this trend starting to pop off so they created their own called The Dirt.

The Dirt is a biographical movie about the band Motley Crue. I remember how big they were back in the 80s to early 90s. They were pretty big and were in the tabloids all the time. This movie tries to dive into all of those scandalous stories that were in the tabloids, and even added some more stories from direct sources.

Some of the stuff that happens in this movie is so wild and outrageous that it's hard to believe it actually happened. The movie at the end actually points out some credible sources for their stories. They even went so far as doing a side by side comparison of the scenes in the movie and the actual scenes or stories told from the horse's mouth. If this was the case, then Motley Crue was a bunch of animals and truly lived a life of chaos and destruction.

This is not a movie for the squeamish. There are a ton of wild things and, in turn, there are a few things in this movie that will disgust a lot of people. I recognize they're telling stories of their own time, but none of this stuff that they did in this movie would fly in this day and age. I guess, they were lucky that they lived in the era that they did because more than half of the stuff that they did would have ended with them in jail and their music careers over.

Some of these stories were pretty interesting. It explains their rise and fall. Their camaraderie with each other is there, but sometimes, it's not so obvious. There are certain pacing issues that made me wonder why certain characters still held their grudges or why they didn't still hold a grudge. They sped up certain parts of the movie, but still stuck around on others that I didn't think were really necessary. There were times, though, when I felt I was watching a made-for-TV movie. It didn't totally seem polished from beginning to end.

One of my gripes about the movie was that they really focused on the antics of the crew members, but they didn't really explain their motivations for some of their songs. One of the great things that Bohemian Rhapsody did was that they explained Queen's motivation in making certain songs, explaining that they were artists and had a reason for doing the things that they did. In The Dirt, everything was just randomness and there wasn't a clear motivation for the albums or the music. It was all sex and drugs, but no rock and roll.

Some fans of the band may enjoy it, but I still think they might be on board with what I'm saying as well. If people are true fans of the band, then they already know about their antics and crazy stories. They could have dived in a little deeper and talked about their artistry.

Also, one of the characters, Mick Mars, was crazy underutilized. I guess, since he's the old guy of the group, he didn't do as much in terms of partying so they didn't think he'd be an important character to portray in the movie. That's kind of hard to believe though. He's the one that came up with the band name and has some serious playing abilities. Yet, he's only there to say a few lines and act all surprised.

Overall, I still had a fun time with the movie albeit in small pockets. I don't think I'd want to see this movie again, or even have an urge to watch this movie again. It had enough entertaining moments that I didn't fall asleep watching it. I would have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. Fans of the band may have a different score in mind, but in terms of actually entertaining me, I thought it was rather bland. They could've did a lot better, especially since they had so much material to work with. It was pretty upsetting that this movie wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.