This outstandingly candid documentary lifts Metallica's lid as the three remaining members attempt to stand in the same room together and make sweet music. There's lots of shouting, swearing, melodramatic door-slamming and year-long trips to rehab. The biggest problem is that these people are great at making little devil signs with their hands but have no idea how
to talk to each other, so they pay a 'performance coach' in Alan Partridge jumpers $40,000 a month (!) to say, hey, can't we all just get along? More unbelievably, the band seem to view his pissy comments as revelatory.
On the extra footage (hours of it), Lars gets angry about being angry ("20 years of anger sold 100 million records"), and there's
a great bit where ex-bassist Jason Newsted leaves an aggressive answerphone rant about not being told that the band were playing, and calls them a bunch of homos. "Maybe the homo thing he's talking about is this," says Hetfield soberly. "Getting in touch with feelings and stuff."
This is an amazing film which shows just how removed from reality you can become when you're rich and famous. But most amazingly, even the filmmakers don't seem to see the comedy value, scoffing at the inevitable (and justified) Spinal Tap comparisons. "The Spinal Tap comparisons boil my blood," said co-director Bruce Sinofsky. "Spinal Tap is a satire, real life is a much more ambiguous, complex, deeper and emotional thing... fans are laughing because of collective relief, because they are so into this band and they are happy to finally get to know them as human beings." Wake up, you nitwit. AG
Out now, £19.99
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