Review: Beastie Boys Story Is Part Memorial, Part TED Talk

Billed as a “live documentary experience,” the film has the feel of a PowerPoint presentation.

Beastie Boys Story
Photo: Apple TV+

In Beastie Boys Story, the band’s surviving members, Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz, describe their gradual realization that Def Jam executive Russell Simmons embraced them only because he thought any group of white rappers could become superstars in the mid 1980s. The Beastie Boys could have easily become defined forever by their first pop hit, 1986’s “Fight for Your Right,” and the misogynistic spectacle of their early performances. Instead, they showed a remarkable ability to reinvent themselves: Their sound evolved from the minimal beats and metal riffs of their debut, Licensed to Ill, to the dizzying, sampledelic collage of Paul’s Boutique, after which their music became harder to pin down, as they returned to their punk roots on early-’90s hits like “Sabotage.”

That song’s iconic music video was directed by longtime collaborator Spike Jonze, who’s also at the helm here. Billed as a “live documentary experience,” the film has the feel of a PowerPoint presentation, with Diamond and Horovitz speaking to a live audience on stage alongside props like a reel-to-reel tape machine playing a loop from Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks,” which forms the basis of 1986’s “Rhymin & Stealin.” The duo runs through the bullet points of their professional history, recounting the regret and disgust they felt over their early stage shows, in which they acted out the characters of the beer-guzzling bros they created for Licensed to Ill, and lamenting how the record executives they considered friends refused to pay them royalties despite the massive success of the album.

As different as is from, say, Tayor Swift’s Miss Americana or Beyoncé’s Homecoming, Beastie Boys Story fits into the recent trend of music docs in which the subjects exercise almost complete control over the way their stories are told. The 572-page Beastie Boys Book, published in 2018, covers the same ground as the film with a more innovative approach. Instead of writing a conventional memoir, Diamond and Horovitz published a collection of essays from friends and cultural critics, laying out the band’s history in both photos and prose. Beastie Boys Story feels stiff in comparison. The book’s essays by drummer Kate Schellenbach and others examining the group’s attitude toward women make a far more compelling case than clips of Diamond and Horovitz criticizing the lyrics of “Girls” or pointing to the more feminist sentiments of their latter-day music.

Advertisement

The Beastie Boys called it quits in 2012 after the death of founding member Adam Yauch. Throughout the film, Diamond and Horovitz credit Yauch with some of the group’s biggest changes in direction. “I want to say a little something that’s long overdue/The disrespect to women has got to be through” he raps on 1994’s “Sure Shot,” effectively signaling the trio’s move toward more progressive politics. His conversion to Buddhism, friendship with the Dalai Lama, and turn toward pro-Tibetan activism helped completely overhaul the band’s public image in the early ’90s. Beastie Boys Story returns to stories of Yauch’s creative influence and unpredictability, and its final act turns into an outright tribute to the late rapper and musician. The film, then, often feels like a cross between a TED talk and a memorial service, but one gets the sense that Diamond and Horovitz are finally getting years’ worth of grief off their chests. The cumulative effect is, at the very least, touching.

Score: 
 Cast: Michael Diamond, Adam Horovitz, Adam Yauch  Network: Apple TV+

Steve Erickson

Steve Erickson lives in New York and writes regularly for Gay City News, Cinefile, and Nashville Scene. He also produces music under the name callinamagician.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.