Hendrix (2000)

Most television movies about real-life rock & roll heroes are a deadening mix of biographical bullet-points and sensational recreations of outré behavior. Rarely does the essence of a pop artist, great or otherwise, come into focus within the spuriously tragic atmosphere of the kind of TV bio-pic that has made fools of the likes of the Beach Boys and John Lennon. Happily, that's not the case with Leon Ichaso's Hendrix, a remarkably sensitive film, originally broadcast on cable, that refuses to exploit guitar legend Jimi Hendrix's mythic appetites nor reduce his prodigious genius to bite-size drama. It is, instead, a portrait of the artist as a field of incongruous energy, sprawling everywhere and nowhere at once, remote from his roots and pained by the disruptive, implacable force of his awesome talent. Wood Harris (Remember the Titans) is wonderful as Hendrix, masterfully capturing the rock god's legendary shyness, unabashed sexual adventurism, and constant redefinition of his purpose and sound. Keeping him on a short tether is Hendrix's management team, which insists he keep up a grueling schedule for the money and throws obstacles onto the path of his creative freedom. Cuban director Ichaso (Sugar Hill) makes clever use out of a fictional, black-and-white interview Hendrix supposedly gave a journalist on the day he died. In it he talks about everything that comes to mind: playing guitar for African American singers on the old rhythm & blues circuit, the thrill of his triumphs during the London blues scene in 1967, and his efforts to mollify advocates of black militarism without becoming involved in it. Terrific support work by Billy Zane as Hendrix's would-be puppeteer, Christian Potenza as former Animals bassist- turned-rock-manager Chas Chandler, and Dorian Harewood as Al Hendrix. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com

wonderful

a lot of people put this movie down. i'm here to tell you that i saw it about a month ago & i dont know much about hendrix, but this movie made me so curious about him that i've purchased 3 books, and 2 dvd's just to learn more. he was so unique--in one book someone called him a beautiful butterfly that people tried to cage. he was bad to the bone and yet so vulnerable. he went thru hell never seeming to find the serenity he needed. anyhow i gave this movie 5 stars cuz i've been buying jimi hendrix material ever since i saw it, and will buy more. he was amazing!! FAST FORWARD...IT IS NOW 5/08, and i looked at this movie again after watching berkely, monterey, isle of wight, etc. and after viewing so much of the real thing, i can now see where they went wrong with the movie. for instance, the wording was all backwards when Harris tried to say what Hendrix really said "I can say thank you, thank you, thank you," before he performed wild thing. nevertheless, Harris really tried after all Hendrix was so unique & beautiful. I can imagine that it was difficult trying to play him. And this is the movie that made me so curious about the real man that I now have books and dvds all about his life. and i'm glad to know that Hendrix may have been vulnerable, but he was still a man and put ppl in their place when he needed to. his only fault was signin those contracts, but he wanted to get that outta the way so he could play his music. thats all he wanted. March 13, 2008

Too much wrong with it to be enjoyable for true Hendrix fans

I can handle cheesy movies, and I don't expect to believe that someone can play Jimi perfectly, but this movie is pretty awful. Wood Harris is a decent actor, but he obvioualy doesn't know much about playing guitar (neither do I, so it has to be pretty obvious to distract me). He frequently speaks in a voice that is too high pitched and resorts to a huge cheesy grin far too often. I respect the effort, but the result isn't enough to carry the movie. Billy Zane should never do a British accent again (and I LIKE some Billy Zane movies - yeah, I know, I know). After the music (see other reviews), the writing is probably the worst part of all. So many details get glossed over, and then we see scenes that are much longer than necessary. I was so excited to see this movie...and so disappointed. Instead of being engrossed, I was constantly distracted. I couldn't get past the Woodstock Star Spangled Banner scene (recreated very poorly). Everyone responsible for that should be slapped in the mug with a stinky fish. Twice. February 23, 2008

Love it

I really enjoyed this movie. Wood Harris did the best job that he can do as far as playing the role of Jimi. I enjoyed both this and the 1973 biography release. This is a must have for any Jimi Hendrix fan. December 2, 2007

Jimi's philosophy and spirituality focused on here. Bravo!

Great movie that gives insight into Jimi's soul. Yes maybe a better film could be made, emphasizing the music a bit more, and explaining the late 60's more, etc. etc. blah blah blah but I still insist that this is an excellent movie. I mean, how much info can you fit into a regular-length movie?! What a difficult project it must be to make a quality entertaining film about such a complicated, brilliant, and original musician. Just finding a competent Jimi impersonator (who can actually play the stuff correctly, look & act like Hendrix, etc.) I would think would be quite difficult alone. I think that Wood Harris does a fine job here, as do all of the other actors who depict the personalities that I've read about over the years in various Jimi bio books. 5+ Stars! & Thanks for reading my review. June 29, 2007

Hendrix?

I really thought this movie sucked, so much so that I couldn't watch the whole thing. I have been a Hendrix fan for a long time, and he is my biggest influence and musical idol. So naturally I was dissapointed when the actor playing Hendrix was not even playing the guitar; not to mention the studio musician they used for the guitar work was channeling texas blues, maybe SRV. It didn't even sound like Hendrix. And as has been mentioned, they didn't get the rights to any actual Hendrix songs, so the soundtrack didn't include any of Jimi's original music(how absurd is that?).
Personally the movie offended me; this movie is useless to anyone who already knows anything about Jimi. And worse, to someone who does not know anything about Jimi, the movie portrays him as a corny goofball who stumbles into stardom. I mean you can listen to the dialogue by the lead actor and you can tell which individual interviews he studied to prepare for the role; yet when he delivers these lines, he sounds like such a loser. When Hendrix spoke, he was certainly a little out there sometimes, but he was cool. He spoke the language of the 60's. This actor definitely lost something in the translation.
I would recommend that you not see this movie; for the same price you could purchase something valuable, like the documentary "Jimi Hendrix" (1973?). This actually has some really good clips of live concert footage. Honestly, I would recommend that anyone who wants to learn more about Jimi should just buy as much of his music as you can afford and listen to it. That is what Jimi Hendrix was about; creating revolutionary music. If you want to get into the story of his life, which was quite sad, read a biography or something.
"Hendrix" does not focus nearly enough on Jimi's music (clearly, they didn't get the rights to!) and instead tries to make a drama of his lifestory, and seems to do that very poorly too. Zero Stars March 30, 2007

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