Sutcliffe’s story is a tragic one, however Softley’s movie is much from a dirge. When The Beatles take the stage (with their 5 man lineup of Lennon, Sutcliffe, McCartney, Harrison, and Greatest), the boys carry out with a revivalist fervor. It is the unfettered pleasure of lads who don’t know how barely-above-average they sound, and do not care. To seize the sound of the nascent Beatles (and work round their lack of entry to the band’s catalogue), Softley assembled an all-star band of ace musicians like Dave Grohl, Thurston Moore, Greg Dulli, Mike Mills, and Henry Rollins, and they’re brilliantly ragged. Does the movie commit some historic sins (like Lennon singing “Lengthy Tall Sally” as an alternative of McCartney)? Yep. Nevertheless it captures the profane spirit of children piss-drunk on the facility of rock-and-roll, and that is value a factual liberty or seven.
Why was such a wildly entertaining film about the most well-liked band on the planet a field workplace failure? “Backbeat” did not lack for publicity (the soundtrack was an enormous deal), however Gramercy Footage bungled the distribution (after manner underestimating the Gen-X attraction of “Dazed and Confused” in 1993). The movie was additionally a 12 months forward of schedule. Beatlemania by no means goes away, but it surely raged with renewed fervor within the fall of 1995 with the discharge of “The Beatles Anthology.”
“Backbeat” will not be a Beatles origin story. It’s a distinctive story about an artist whose greatest likelihood at happiness was to depart The Beatles, which might’ve by no means been The Beatles with him. What Sutcliffe would’ve been with out The Beatles is a query value asking, and Dorff’s heartbreaking efficiency leaves you lamenting a world the place each thrived.
(You can’t watch “Backbeat” on streaming in the meanwhile, however you should purchase the Blu-ray by way of Shout Manufacturing facility.)