The popularity of the music biopic has taken a dip in recent years, with a decline not too long after the release of parody film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story which parodied the last wave of music biopics like Ray and Walk the Line. While there have been the sporadic films here and there, the subgenre may find itself in a comeback due to the popularity of last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Now an Elton John biopic is on the way, while the darker, more unconventional biopic Lords of Chaos saw a limited release earlier this year, over a year after premiering in Sundance. But the next film after Bohemian Rhapsody to see a major release is The Dirt, released on Netflix, focusing on the hair metal band Motley Crue, a band which could not be any more undeserving of the biopic treatment.
Based on the group’s autobiography of the same name, the film is mainly told through the point of view of bassist and leader Nikki Sixx (Douglas Booth), from his childhood in Seattle, to his move to Los Angeles, meeting drummer Tommy Lee (Machine Gun Kelly), guitarist Mick Mars (Iwan Rheon). and vocalist Vince Neil (Daniel Webber), before going on to form Motley Crue. The band sell out all over LA nightclubs, sign a five-record deal with producer Tom Zutaut (Pete Davidson), get a manager named Doc McGhee (David Costabile), and become worldwide phenomenons. The rest of the film is dedicated to the band doing what they do best: Womanizing, partying, and wreaking havoc.
Hair metal has always been known as one of the more critically derided music genres, due to its simplistic lyrics, goofy stage personas, and in many cases, misogynistic lyrics. Motley Crue was often regarded as the embodiment of a typical hair metal band, with their hedonistic nature and personal turmoils that have found them in the news more than once. To say they weren’t the most likable people was an understatement, and if one already had an unfavorable view of the band before walking into this movie, this isn’t going to change anyone’s mind.
The film does absolutely nothing to make any of the Motley Crue band members anything remotely close to a likable person. The film opens with Sixx immediately being yelled at by his drunken mother, which would probably be the only moment in the film that would gain the audience’s sympathies, but it’s completely undermined by how cartoonishly evil Sixx’s mother is and how cold and distant Sixx comes off right from the start. He fakes being abused by her, calls the cops on her, and later attempts to find his biological father, only to be promptly rejected by him.
And from there, it’s all downhill. The film is an hour and forty minutes’ worth of the band being loud, obnoxious, back-stabbing, and borderline abusive. They constantly insult each other and whoever else gets in their way, and this would be at least mildly entertaining if the insults had any sort of creativity to them in the vein of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It and In the Loop, rather than just constantly dropping four-letter words for the sake of it. They go after whichever woman they please, and have no remorse if it’s a woman cheating on their husband or boyfriend.
All the members of the band will occasionally break the fourth wall to comment on the situation though never really seeming to care what the audience thinks about them. They will also comment exactly when there’s a moment that was spun slightly for dramatic effect, and what’s incredible about this is that even when tweaking some of the facts, the film can’t really do anything to turn such an unlikable group of people into something even just a bit sympathetic. The film will occasionally be a little bit of fun recreating some of the band’s moments on-stage, with their catchy songs, but these are followed up by some drunken, drugged-up party sequence that serves as a quick reminder these are all horrible people on screen.
And to just make the characters even more unlikable, all the performances are all so completely unmemorable. Machine Gun Kelly seems absolutely clueless while Iwan Rheon’s so constantly angry that it begins to feel one-note after a while. Booth provides mostly running commentary but beyond that, doesn’t really do anything that stands out, while Webber does nothing noteworthy at all, and just blends in with the obnoxious partying.
Meanwhile, outside of the band, Pete Davidson feels sorely out of place here, lacking chemistry with nearly everyone, and moving around aimlessly like someone who simply just doesn’t belong. The only performance that’s serviceable is Costabile, who puts in some actual effort as the band’s only voice of reason. While he’s only given so much to do, he’s essentially the only character with any real moral compass in the midst of the band’s constant partying, and in a sea of unlikable characters, he’s the only one worth anyone’s time.
The Dirt is an awful movie about an awful group of people. The film glamorizes just how wild and depraved Motley Crue was, with little-to-no character development as it subjects the audience to one scene after the other of the band making fools out of themselves and really not caring what anyone thinks of them. If the music biopic truly does make a comeback, hopefully this one will be quickly forgotten and buried into the dirt where it belongs.
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