X
- Hulu
- Apr 25, 2024
- Hulu
- Apr 25, 2024
Summary The four-part docuseries about New Jersey rock band Bon Jovi features interviews (including former guitarist Richie Sambora) and footage of their 2022 tour as Jon Bon Jovi suffered from vocal cord issues and had surgery.
- Hulu
- Apr 25, 2024
- Hulu
- Apr 25, 2024
Season Premiere: Apr 25, 2024
64
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
Summary The four-part docuseries about New Jersey rock band Bon Jovi features interviews (including former guitarist Richie Sambora) and footage of their 2022 tour as Jon Bon Jovi suffered from vocal cord issues and had surgery.
Season Episodes
View All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
64
43% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
57% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
64
43% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
57% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Gotham Chopra’s stellar portrait. Yes, Thank You, Good Night is a rock doc charting the group’s evolution from Jersey bar band to Eighties pop-metal fame and beyond, but it’s not hagiography. Along with the humbling vocal issue narrative, the docuseries doesn’t shy away from awkward subjects, including the group’s lack of critical support and how it tweaked Bon Jovi’s ego.
By far the strongest instalment is the opener, which can be watched in isolation as an evocative charge through the period leading up to the band’s formation and breakthrough. The best rockumentaries have the power to pitch us into a past moment we wish we could hang out in – the place and time here that crackles with fantastic potential is New Jersey in the back half of the 1970s.
It’s Bon Jovi’s own decision-making that figures into the biggest dramatic hook in Thank You, which is the whys and hows of Sambora’s departure, and that will certainly keep us watching.
Thank You, Goodnight is undeniably brave. Jon didn’t need to open himself up this much. But rather like a protracted heavy metal guitar solo, the documentary just goes on for a bit too long.
Like the anthemic songs the platinum-selling New Jersey-born singer is known for, it would take an extra step to actively dislike this very by-the-numbers Hulu documentary, but the excessive length and the overblown manner in which it tries to manufacture drama does get a bit irritating. Put bluntly, there just isn’t much going on in this sanctioned and manicured portrait, yet it still goes on forever.
Thank You, Goodnight is a perfectly nice retrospective, approachable and amiable and affectionate. But that’s not the same thing as saying it’s a particularly insightful one. Even as Jon subjects himself to what must have been dozens or hundreds of hours of interviews, he (or perhaps Chopra) keeps himself at too much of a distance to come fully into focus.
There’s not enough depth to the modern sections of the series to really give us an understanding of the band as it stands anyway, beyond having lost two founding members and hitting forty years of making music.
User Reviews
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.