Beastie Boys Story (2020)

Beastie Boys Story review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

The remaining Beastie Boys choose to tell their own story in a manner most fitting. They stage a concert where they come out to a crowd to play up to a crowd as they attempt to be honest about the good and bad on their rise to rap and rock fame. It comes off quite artificial at times in how they rehearse their story and make not-so-funny attempts at bickering with their multimedia crew during their biography. Yet there’s a pleasing nature to how much they divulge when trotting around a stage and playing up to a microphone.

Michael Diamond, Adam Horovitz, and Adam Yauch all come clean in this documentary, mixing archival footage with a spoken-word showcase. Directed by Spike Jonze, the show manages to have a great flow in deciding when to let the artists take over and when to let the footage do the talking. They touch upon a lot of interesting moments in their careers, from their rise in the popularity of the rap scene to taking time off. There’s a surprising amount of insight about the music industry they reveal in this live performance. It caught me a bit off guard for them to speak so openly about how they had no clue what they were doing when they started jumping into the realm of digital music.

What’s most compelling in their talks is how they discuss their personalities during this era. They were young, on the rise, and conflicted about what they wanted for their futures. Sure, everything seemed to be all parties and noise in the 1980s but the 1990s found them struggling to take themselves in different directions. They clearly wanted more than just being the flash in the pan of the rap world, considering their contract only came about because the label was looking for some white boys to slap on a cover, more interested in demographics than the music itself. The fact that the Beastie Boys came so far from that contract and sought so much more is a testament to their ambitions that didn’t fizzle out.

However, it can be incredibly hard to get into the documentary when the boys veer off-script. Or, rather, when they try to stay on script. It becomes evident pretty quick why the Beastie Boys could never have one of those reality television shows because they’re absolutely terrible at delivering the humorous bits. To lighten the mood, they’ll often speak about technical issues and how they didn’t plan on certain moments to happen in obviously staged attempts at comedy. These bits don’t work and there’s a certain nervousness you can see in their faces when trying to sell the whole this-show-has-gone-awry running joke. It’s like watching the Beastie Boys perform magic and stumbling along as they go. The audience laughs but one has to wonder how much of it is for the attempt rather than the execution.

The Beastie Boys Story is quite messy in how it jumps around eras and mashes music into a staged performance with hills and valleys. For the most part, however, the film remains informative and fun in how it pulls back the curtain a little more and let this iconic group bare their souls to a live audience. I can’t exactly say I’ve seen a show quite like this so it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness of such a concert film. Yet there’s a lingering sensation that a better flow could be achieved from a career so intriguing.