In theory the new movie BACKBEAT is about the early days of the
Beatles in Hamburg and Liverpool before they became famous. At least
this is the movie I went to see. This movie would have been or at
least should have been fascinating. I was a teenager in the 60s and
was a big fan of the Beatles's music when I was growing up.
Forget theory. The film known as BACKBEAT is actually about
Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff) who dropped out of the group to paint
and about his girlfriend and photographer Astrid Kirchherr (Sheryl
Lee).
A review of this botched attempt at telling the early life of the
Beatles is pretty easy. If it was really this boring why make a movie,
and if it wasn't, why is this movie so?
Now there are a few, and only a few good aspects of this film.
First and foremost, there are about a dozen music segments. Ah, that
is the good news. The bad news is that most of them seem to last all
of about thirty seconds so that the audience is not distracted from the
awful movie about Sutcliffe. There is also Astrid's wonderful smile.
I am sure there must have been something else good about the film, but
I am unable to recall anything. For the short music clips and for
Astrid's smile, I generously award the picture a single star.
If anybody ever makes a good film about the early days of the
Beatles, I would love to see it. My recommendation is to pass this one
by and look for one of the many Beatles documentaries if you want to
know more.
Copyright © 1994 Steve Rhodes
out of 4
