The Dirt (2019) Review

The crazy story of the rise of Mötley Crüe and how absolutely mental they were off stage, causing so many issues throughout their time performing.

⭐️⭐️

We start off with a little bit of back story to how the band started and how Frank Feranna Jr. became Nikki Sixx hating his mother and the abusive number of boyfriends she had. When he then moves to Los Angeles and attempts to find his father, who wants nothing to do with him that is when the new name comes about and he kicks on with a different life. When drummer Tommy Lee comes into the picture they get started with a new band, adding in guitarist Mick Mars and then recruiting Vince Neil as the lead singer. He had been working in a cover band. This was therefore the birth of Mötley Crüe.

I personally had no idea about the background of the band and the carnage they managed to cause. Rock music is my favourite in all honesty and I constantly listen to Classic Rock on the radio in my car. Therefore I have grown to really enjoy quite a lot of the band’s music. Watching this film certainly opened my eyes to how mental the rock bands really could be. It certainly showed that they had a little bit of luck when Tom Zutaut took a chance on the band with his first job role as a producer. Signing the band to a five album deal on Elektra Records. Doc McGhee came in as manage and during the first national tour they are given advice from Ozzy Osbourne (in all honesty though I felt as though the accent from the actor was more Australian than from Birmingham). Yes, probably not the best person to take advice from.

Along with the rock and roll lifestyle, plenty of women on the go it is put across in a nice way when they actually fall in love and get married. But that doesn’t stop so tough things happening, Vince being involved in an accident which kills Razzle and then having to spend a little bit of time in prison. Nikki hits drugs very hard and this is all shown within the film as well, making it rather difficult to watch at times.

Nothing is left unturned in the film in all honesty as we see the hard drug use and plenty of sex scenes as well. It seems as though it was all a very tough phase and I imagine it was the same for a lot of rock bands of the time. Each member of the band have personal challenges and issues which are shown in the film as well, so it wasn’t really all fun and games. I thought it was reassuring when they decided to get sober together and attempt to still keep it all about the music instead of everything that went along with it.

It makes me sad that I never got the chance to see them perform live when the film ends by saying that they played their final show together on New Year’s Eve 2015. I thought it was put together in an interesting way and I found it quite good to watch from start to finish, nothing groundbreaking or outstanding but a must for any rock music fan.