Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

What a ride. Filmmakers Berlinger and Sinofsky had no idea they would find a band in crisis, let alone in therapy when they first rolled the cameras on Metallica in 2001, initially employed by the band’s record company to make a promo film. For the next two years, they followed the group as they tried to record their latest ‘St. Anger’ album while all the time taking advice from Phil Towle, a homely group therapist with a penchant for knitwear and platitudes.
We watch as the group frustrate themselves by failing to produce any decent music. Then, their bassist Jim Hetfield decides to disappear for a while to sort out some of the problems that earned the group the nickname ‘Alcoholica’. If we could see the faces of the filmmakers during all this, they would surely be looking very, very smug indeed. It’s a fantastic portrait of a band in freefall, refreshingly honest and, at points, like witnessing a car crash. You just can’t help but watch.