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In the 80s, the rock band Mötley Crüe lived a crazy lifestyle of sex, drugs, booze, and rock n roll. The band consisted of four members, Nikki Six, Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, and Mick Mars. They topped many charts and brought attention to themselves with their crazy antics. The band fit the cliché of a rock band and embraced how the media and fans felt about them. My family listened to a lot of rock when I was growing up, so I heard a lot of Mötley Crüe. I have been to a few rock concerts in my past, but never Mötley Crüe. I’m a fan of their music, especially the song ‘Home Sweet Home’, which was featured at the end of Hot Tub Time Machine.
Biopics seem to be popular right now in Hollywood with Bohemian Rhapsody, about the band Queen, which came out last year, and the newest one coming out in May about Elton John, Rocketman. I was surprised to hear that Mötley Crüe would be the next pick for a biopic, but when I heard it was arriving on Netflix, it made more sense to me.
Not one point in The Dirt did I feel that the actors playing the four members of Mötley Crüe were a group. When rock bands form in real life, it is because the group has chemistry and they understand each other. Mötley Crüe was successful for many different reasons and one of them was the chemistry amongst the group. It ultimately felt like four people trying to imitate rock legends but failing at it. I enjoyed seeing them perform some of my favorite Mötley Crüe songs, and it was fun to see Machine Gun Kelly in this movie, but it never felt like Mötley Crüe during those scenes.
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Mötley Crüe lived a crazy lifestyle and from the very first shot of the film, I could tell that they weren’t going to hold back on what they did as a group. Many scenes throughout the movie involved cocaine and nudity. That was how they lived their life and the film wasn’t afraid to showcase that. The group tried several different times to try and get clean from drugs, but that only worked a few times for them. I think the movie focused more on the drugs and trying to get clean rather than the band’s success. Of course, the film featured many of their hit songs, but much of the film centered around the group’s drug usage and how it fit into their daily routine. That led to some of the more dramatic moments not having a weight to them and feeling thin. The group struggled to cooperate with each other a few times in their career and that was presented in the movie, but it never felt like a big issue to the group. When a group breaks up or a band member leaves, it can be a huge deal to both the group and fans alike, but the filmmakers never took those scenes seriously.
The Dirt was a decent biopic and it was a smart choice to premiere it on Netflix. This allowed for the movie to explore more of the haunting sides of their career and how the drugs affected their lives. It was fun to see them perform the popular Mötley Crüe songs in the movie even if the actors never felt like a group. I would be curious to see more biopics on Netflix sometime soon, I just hope there is more chemistry amongst the group.
Want to see The Dirt and judge for yourself? Click on the images below to see the movie, and be sure to come back and tell us what you thought!
The Dirt has a run time of 1 hour 47 minutes and is rated TV-MA.
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