Review of Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007) by Seán C — 28 Jan 2008

Unlike Temple's brilliant "The Filth and the Fury", his documentary eight years ago on the Sex Pistols, there's something incendiary lacking here. I was a huge fan of The Clash -- Sandinista! remains my favourite album, because they dared to try (and occasionally fail), but they were at their most precise -- but, after 1981, they really only put out two great songs: "Straight to Hell" and "This is England".

And it is at this point in the documentary that things drag: Strummer, confined, pinned, confused, whatever, ends up spending the rest of his life on a desperate search that, unfortunately, was concluded by his untimely death at 50.

Post-1981, the film is filled with easy platitudes and epiphanies that are obvious to anyone that gets past age 35. Strummer had his moment, and it was a great one, but it is never reconciled, nor even comes close to being matched.

But it's not as if he settled -- and I suppose that's a good thing. Best quotes belong to Don Letts ("Joe was a coward," regarding Clash firings) and John Cooper Clarke ("Punks were just hippies with zips.

"). And what are Buscemi, Cusack, Depp, Bono (asshole!), Dillon and the Chili Peppers really doing here? The film is simply too long, and it's kind of sad, not inspiring. The worst that can come of documenting Joe Strummer's life is to romanticize it too much.

Unfortunately, The Future is Unwritten does just that. What a shame.