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34
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60
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78
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86
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45
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88
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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73
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16
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61
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66
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59
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xx
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54
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76
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79
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40
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69
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64
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69
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 19 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by: Julien Temple
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 2, 2007
DVD: July 8, 2008
Running Time: 123 minutes, Color
Origin: Ireland / UK
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Bono, Steve Buscemi, Terry Chimes, John Cooper Clarke, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Matt Dillon, and Joe Strummer
As the lead singer of The Clash from 1977 onward, Joe Strummer changed people's lives forever. Four years after his death, his influence reaches out around the world, more strongly now than ever before. In The Future Is Unwritten, from British film director Julien Temple, Joe Strummer is revealed not just as a legend or musician, but as a true communicator of our times. Drawing on both a shared punk history and the close personal friendship that developed over the last years of Joe's life, Julien Temple's film is a celebration of Joe Strummer--before, during, and after The Clash. (IFC Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Glastonbury Pandaemonium The Filth and the Fury
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
The most powerful documentary I've seen all year, and one of the two or three best films ever made about an artist or musician.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
That rarest of movie biographies: a warts-and-all exploration of the life and times of its subject.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
By focusing on Strummer and giving a fair amount of screen time to his years in the wilderness before and after the Clash, Temple arrives at a more poignant and mature statement of what this committed band was all about.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The film is much more than a biography of the Clash’s guitarist and lead singer: It’s history, criticism, philosophy and politics, played fast and loud.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The triumph of this fond, uncontainable documentary is that it lets you hear that voice again loud and clear.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Dan DeLuca
Julian Temple, the British music-documentary director who helmed the 2000 Pistols' flick "The Filth and the Fury," has done such cinematic justice to the punk humanist born John Graham Mellor, who died of a congenital heart defect in 2002.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Captures the Joe Strummer who, in the late 1970s, just about firebombed the rock establishment with his fury.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Temple introduces viewers to Strummer the punster, Strummer the womanizer, and Strummer the poseur, whom his mates could only really talk to when no one else was around.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
The film is a rigorously thorough biography and an impassioned accolade. Temple spends as much time on Strummer's life before and after the Clash as he does charting the band's powerful musical and political influence.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Like an early Clash number, it's by turns lovely and ugly, loud as bombs and quiet as a revolution's first-thrown stone; it acknowledges the legend while uncovering the truth.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The movie fascinates not so much because of Strummer, whose brooding temperament and flash-and-burn career arc seems pretty routine by rock standards, but because of the way Temple organized and edited the film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Greg Kot
Its moving narrative requires little in the way of embellishment, but Temple’s documentary sometimes becomes too clever for its own good.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Joel Selvin
One of the most direct and personal music documentaries ever made.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
At its best, it throbs with immediacy, just as Strummer did.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
Compelling viewing, even for people who don't care a bit for the punk scene.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jim Ridley
Temple's engrossing portrait of the Clash's late frontman uses endlessly suggestive montage to show how he kept punk's precepts alive, even after he left the music and eventually the earth itself.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
At least the movie never bogs down. But you only get a taste of what made the Clash for a brief period the most exciting band on that side of the Atlantic.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Thirty years down the line, not everyone looks as they once did, so even fans will have trouble putting names to aged faces. Newcomers, meanwhile, will feel hopelessly shut out.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Andrew F. gave it a4:
I'm surprised to see the positive reviews. I felt the film was a sprawling mess that didn't engage. By the end, I was tired of all the nameless faces, poor sound mixing, and the endless montage. My friend who adores Strummer felt he didn't learn anything that any fan would already know. Myself, who knows nothing of Strummer, felt drowned in a sea of confusion. We both felt bored.
Nikki Ikki gave it a10:
Wonderful! Just Wonderful!
keith B. gave it a6:
I had high expectations from the maker of the Filth and the Fury, a real masterpiece. Julien Temple follows up with another excellent doc but at one point I started to think something's not quite right. Ok, the campfire testimonials was pretty bad. But more than that it was the relentlessness of the pacing that didn't work: kind of like watching a train go by, the cars one after another after another. Sorry Julien, I nodded off at one point.
