Since it is extremely unlikely that I will see Bon Jovi or any of its members live again, I decided to try to take this documentary seriously as one of (if not the) last remaining pieces of content of this band that I will ever fully engage with, which means writing a lengthy review. I’ve only briefly scrolled through a couple of pages of in this thread to not get a tainted view (will do more reading after I post), so apologies if any of my points repeat any of yours.
For starters, I’m an avid viewer of documentaries (mostly on sports and music) and most of them are pretty good, because they are easy to do. It’s like pizza of film, the floor is very high, because if the subject is of interest, you will enjoy watching the highlights and hearing people talk about them. That being said, what separates pretty good documentaries from great ones are usually two things i) access to interesting people and their participation; and ii) willingness to tackle difficult/uncomfortable subjects or periods. Given what we know about what modern Bon Jovi is (or as insiders like to call it, ‘the organisation’), I really did not expect much in either department, but especially the second one - glad to be proven wrong. I’ll try to structure my review based on these two aspects.
Firstly, the people interviewed. Not everyone involved needed to be there (e.g. Obie was utterly useless, Bruce added name credibility and nothing else), but everyone that needed to be involved was there, if that makes sense; outside of Alec, obviously, due to his untimely passing. Much like everyone, I wish we heard Alec’s story from his mouth, but given everything we know about his life after leaving the band points to him becoming an extremely private person, in the style of John Deacon from Queen (perhaps that’s a bassist thing!), so I could not imagine Alec, even if he was still alive, that he would be dishing any tangible dirt in this documentary setting, like Richie did. I think we would have gotten the same soft-spoken humble Alec we had at the Hall of Fame induction.
As for the rest of the cast goes, it is very obvious that the most interesting insights we got were from people who are not currently on Jon’s payroll - Doc and Richie. The doc rightfully shows Doc McGhee as the central figure of the first two episodes, as the brains of the operation. He’s the only one that claims to have noticed tension and competition between Jon and Richie in the 80s, while the image to the public was one of best friends. One of the more interesting quotes from Jon is that he felt Doc towards the end was “working the band against” him. I can’t help but feel that Doc’s downfall was not as much as being money-driven and working the band to exhaustion (which was the common narrative), as Jon is just as financially oriented and tends to overwork the people around him, which he admits; but more-so managing the band as a whole with a bunch of egos inside (Kiss, Motley Crue, Scorpions); as opposed to managing Jon as his main client and then Jon’s band as a distant second (which is what Korzilius has been doing). They did an good job describing the early 90s hiatus and the end of the NJ tour. It is a big contrast to how those last shows in Mexico are covered, portraying the band on its last legs here vs. the tired but loving brotherhood of the Access All Areas film. I also liked how they covered the solo albums, especially Jon’s chip on the shoulder, preferring to write Blaze for Young Guns, a new version of Wanted (that would be his only without any co-writers) rather than simply licensing them Wanted (which is what they originally asked for), which sounds ridiculous on a surface level, makes Jon look quite insecure (i.e. going the extra mile to shut up the critics who were attributing the band’s hits to Desmond Child) and could’ve easily blown up in his face, if Blaze didn’t end up doing as well as it did. Similarly, I laughed at Jon complaining about SWW singles receiving 0 Grammy nominations, when the guy was on top of the world at the time, as far as commercial success goes, on par with Michal Jackson, but the lack of critical acclaim always bothered Jon, no matter how much he boasted about being the Tom Cruise of the music business. Going back to episode 2 and the hiatus, I thought the film also laid solid groundwork for Richie’s needing to express himself outside of Bon Jovi, which only builds with time as that part of him is compromised. I wish they mentioned David and Tico working on Stranger, which suggests that at least then, they were more Team Richie than Jon.
I briefly saw most of the discussion here being about Richie and his reasons of departure, so I’ll say this - I think this is as good as I’ve seen a band member split being covered at a documentary like this. They gave it plenty of time, we learned some new things and it was not one-sided and you cannot ask for much more in this particular format. You would be surprised by how many documentaries fail at some of these aspects. Yes, much like the rest, I also wonder what else he said during the second interview when so little of it made the cut, as well as, when did the departure become permanent (those that followed the 2013 tour remember that it initially wasn’t), but Jon dodged the question saying he still hasn’t accepted it as being permanent - which he clearly has, as evident by other public interviews, but I cannot blame the director for not asking. As far as what made the cut, I thought both sides represented their sides well and Richie came across direct and honest, as did Jon. What is the percentage of truth in their statements, we cannot assess, but assuming they’re both truthful, at the end of the day, you are left with combination of reasons for their split: Jon’s pushy and never-stop-working nature, Richie’s family problems, Jon’s fascination with Shanks as a new collaborative partner, Shanks’ weird quasi-conflict of interest position (i.e. Jon is the guy that hired him, of course he’s gonna work for him instead of doing ego management within the band like someone like Rick Rubin does when he’s producing RHCP or Metallica), Richie’s substance abuse and unavailability, Jon’s treatment of BJ creative process as solely his as supposed to his and Richie’s collective work, Richie not feeling needed, nor being creatively fulfilled in Shanks-era BJ (all while not having enough free time to pursue that fulfilment through solo music), Jon’s rushing another album/tour cycle to generate cash for his NFL dream against his bandmate’s wishes, Richie’s apparent holding thoughts inside when he’s upset instead of letting them out (e.g. not being featured on The Fighter), Jon’s inability to pause once shit hits the fan (because he’s “anything but a quitter”), etc.; and I’m sure you can add more to the list. Much like personal relationships, there’s rarely one reason why they break, and this is no exception, but I’m glad we can have a bit more complete picture of the situation than what we had before.
Obviously, I must talk about the portrayal of Jon’s vocals. If someone told me 1 or 2 years ago, that we will be treated to a big-time release authorised by Bon Jovi with so much time devoted to Jon’s bad singing, I would not have believed you. Jon is not the first singer to decline dramatically, but is probably the first one to address this so publicly. If only he had done it sooner, he would have maintained a few more die hard fans. But it took him the embarrassment of the 2022 tour to pivot into this new brand of ‘honesty PR’ better late than never. And while his current state of affairs was very honest, I wish there was more on explanation WHY he feels his voice declined as bad as it did post-2013. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that he is never portrayed with a cigarette. Nonetheless, the scene with him in the dressing room fighting tears on episode 2 is a touching visual; it is as close as we get to seeing Jon coming to grips that he will most likely suck forever. Interesting that for his first performance post-surgery he chose Let It Rain, a song from 2020, which we already recorded with a very broken voice, as supposed to something maybe from late 2000s. Lastly, as someone who always cringed at his promise of never being fat Elvis, I liked that he finally relented that at his worse Elvis still had the voice; and his fat Elvis metaphor is that he as a person lost everything but his instrument; whereas Jon feels he’s still the same person, but without his instrument; and he prefers the latter. Who knows, if he truly feels that way or is that a spin that makes more sense in his current state, but I enjoyed that he at least addressed it.
The most critical aspect of the documentary to me is the inconsistent pacing. Episode 3 encapsulated 23 years (>50% of the band’s history), whereas episode 4 covers 10 years, which were a lot less successful than the previous 23. We spent more time on Bounce (a failed record at the time), THINFS (I like it, but general public doesn’t care), 2020 (no, American Reckoning is not a classic song) than we had on KTF and TD. Jon claimed he had no say on the final cut, but I find it hard to believe, as certain elements toward the end just scream modern Bon Jovi propaganda. Did we really need to spend 6 minutes on Soul Kitchen? To paraphrase corporate jargon, episode 4 should have been an e-mail. More Cadillac Man could have been played. Or more footage from old performances, anything really than Jon’s political campaign materials.
Final verdict - decently honest, well edited, well interviewed with great archived interviews sprinkled in. After episode 3 I thought I was watching a potential all time great documentary, but the excess fat in the final episode dragged the down to a very good, but The Last Dance this is not. It still exceeded my expectations for a Bon Jovi organisation product. Solid 8/10.
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04-29-2024, 05:51 PM
