Netflix’s The Dirt won’t win any awards nor will it inspire any would-be musicians, but it is entertaining and offers up a compelling story about Mötley Crüe. And while it isn’t a completely accurate depiction of the band’s tumultuous career, the film itself is insightful.
What makes the film most successful are the four performers. The standout is Baker (better known as rapper Machine Gun Kelly) who plays Tommy Lee with both a sweet naivety and an insidious mischievousness that make some of the darker moments sneak up on you without feeling unearned.
If you weren't a fan of Mötley Crüe before this outrageous biopic then you certainly will be after. Based on the book written by the band this movie does not hold back. Along with the sex, drugs and rock n' roll you'd expect in a movie about one of the best bands in the world, there are incredible highs and crashing lows. The actors all do a superb job in transforming in Nikki, Tommy, Mick and Vince. Would highly recommend.
But even with the absurdist spectacle making for occasionally fun viewing, what has room to rise and fall in a 400-plus page book gets condensed into trite moralizing in 108 minutes.
Rock biopics often struggle with the part after the party’s over, but The Dirt becomes unusually adrift; at times, you can’t even tell what decade you’re supposed to be watching.
Remarkably, the new Netflix movie takes the same pathetic approach. It’s as if the film arrived to the streaming service in a bubble, unaware that the culture has moved on and that Netflix is brimming with content written, directed and starring strong women. In this horribly timed release, the debasement of multiple women is supposed to be all in fun — and funny, because The Crüe is having a good time and it’s rock ’n’ roll, baby!
You could listen to Dr. Feelgood two full times during the run time of The Dirt and learn just about as much about the band as you do in this R-rated Wikipedia article of a movie. And you’d have way more fun.
More raunchy than the Queen biopic but with unlikable characters. The actors are fine and have a certain on screen chemistry, but the uneven script doesn’t do them any favours. Especially the last act is dreadful doing a 360 and wanting the audience to just forget what has passed before. If you like your protagonists to be as hedonistic obnoxious as possible or fancy a nostalgia trip set around 80's sunset strip extravaganza it ain't half bad.
I enjoyed this since it reminded me what I missed (thank God) when I left Mick Mars just before this film starts. But Mick's pre Crue adventures and life and death stories blows this weak Dirt story out of the water. Here is a story from the audio book "Motley Rock Stories" about Mick Mars and where Tommy Lee got the idea to be the 2nd flying drummer as Mick helped me become the first. Believe it or not. ****/ggHQ79kNDv8
Everything looked great for this attractive Mötley Crüe biopic. Everything before you take a look at it. I never saw a movie so representative of itself in its five first minutes. Yep, in less than five minutes, you saw it all. On the menu of originality of rock bands biopics we have : flashing boobs, drugs and alcohol abuse (but those certainly are unavoidable classics), groupies, family feuds, long worldwide tours, a lot of sex, stupid characters, pre-juvenile and childish jokes, arguments within the band and violence among others.
The movie quickly becomes disjointed and its pace becomes really tricky. 'The Dirt' will surely bombard you of naked women and sex scenes in order to get a bit of the public's attention. It will not hide product placements as Jack Daniels and Marshall technology. As the events go on and on the characters appear to have less and less depth until you reach the 'I-don't-care-anymore' point. It is better that way because if you try to hang on that will be your humanity that will take a hard shot.
Surprisingly there are some parts in which the movie tries to be moving and more coherent but these parts totally fall apart with the terrible acting and scenarists' writing skills. The impression of having wasted time at the end is omnipresent.