Reviewer's grade: C-

Director Julien Temple puts together a collage of old photographs, film clips and interviews with friends and former co-workers of Joe Strummer, lead singer of Seventies punk band The Clash. As the title implies, the film is more Strummer-centric than other, earlier Clash documentaries. Temple delivers early in the film with more in-depth history of Strummer's childhood and young years in his first band, The 101'ers, but once we reach the inception of The Clash, it's all familiar terrain and we don't get as much of the human side of Strummer as we do the punk icon.

The film does go into his post-Clash years, but unfortunately, nothing very interesting happened during that period, and at just over two hours, it starts to drag a bit, especially when we're treated to pointless celebrity testimonials from Johnny Depp, Matt Dillon, Jim Jarmusch, John Cusack and others. Interesting, but really only for Strummer fans who must see and hear everything, and those who never heard of him or The Clash at all. NR

"”    Mike Robertson 

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