I really enjoyed this film. I'm a mild Metallica fan (I went to one of their concerts but never bought any albums), and this movie definitely caused me to become a lot more of a fan. It was totally fascinating in its depiction of the creative process, when it works and when it doesn't. It was so awesome to see these famous people depicted as normal human beings. I never would have guessed that Hetfield and Ulrich had such issues. They're both control freaks and they should just realize that and figure out a way to work together without butting heads. (Although by the end, they did kind of figure out a way.) Seeing the way they fought, I was surprised that the band has been together so long. Probably there were tensions building for a long time, which finally came out before the movie started because of some unnamed reason - maybe they were finally starting to grow up and realize that Metallica might not be the be-all and end-all for the last half of their lives.
Amazing to see how it was all breaking down, before Hetfield went into rehab. They've been such a successful band that I would have thought their creative process was locked-in and running smoothly. But they're just humans, like all of us. I thought their humility in letting this psychological stuff be shown in the movie made them seem like even better people. Yeah, I know Hetfield's and Ulrich's egos are big as houses, but they let the filmmakers show them at their worst, and that takes guts.
Commentors keep saying Kirk Hammett was shown to be a wimp in this movie. Quit being so f***ing macho! I thought he was totally cool. Not everyone is a control freak like Hetfield and Ulrich, and in comparison Hammett looked mild-mannered and agreeable. What's wrong with that? The band is lucky he wasn't another huge ego like the other 2 - THAT would have made things really difficult! Plus Hammett's a total babe.
Another commenter said that he/she would have liked to see them talk more about why they loved heavy metal, and I would have, too. I don't think they're self-aware enough for that though. They did get more self-aware about their feelings about *each other* during the course of the movie, but they didn't talk much about the creative process. The creativity the movie did show was fascinating. Heavy metal seems to be, at least for Metallica, an expression of deep psychological wounding, and for them to open up all those wounds (they definitely didn't heal everything in the therapy they got) and heal them might have been detrimental to their creative process, in the end. What would they have to rage about, if it all got cleaned up? Some others writing here have cynically suggested that the band was just trying to create another popular, lucrative product, but I don't agree. I saw them struggle mightily to create music that was gripping, intense, and an expression of their feelings. I see that as their passion.
Amazing to see how it was all breaking down, before Hetfield went into rehab. They've been such a successful band that I would have thought their creative process was locked-in and running smoothly. But they're just humans, like all of us. I thought their humility in letting this psychological stuff be shown in the movie made them seem like even better people. Yeah, I know Hetfield's and Ulrich's egos are big as houses, but they let the filmmakers show them at their worst, and that takes guts.
Commentors keep saying Kirk Hammett was shown to be a wimp in this movie. Quit being so f***ing macho! I thought he was totally cool. Not everyone is a control freak like Hetfield and Ulrich, and in comparison Hammett looked mild-mannered and agreeable. What's wrong with that? The band is lucky he wasn't another huge ego like the other 2 - THAT would have made things really difficult! Plus Hammett's a total babe.
Another commenter said that he/she would have liked to see them talk more about why they loved heavy metal, and I would have, too. I don't think they're self-aware enough for that though. They did get more self-aware about their feelings about *each other* during the course of the movie, but they didn't talk much about the creative process. The creativity the movie did show was fascinating. Heavy metal seems to be, at least for Metallica, an expression of deep psychological wounding, and for them to open up all those wounds (they definitely didn't heal everything in the therapy they got) and heal them might have been detrimental to their creative process, in the end. What would they have to rage about, if it all got cleaned up? Some others writing here have cynically suggested that the band was just trying to create another popular, lucrative product, but I don't agree. I saw them struggle mightily to create music that was gripping, intense, and an expression of their feelings. I see that as their passion.