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Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
IFC Films

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten reviews


7.2

based on 19 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Bono, Steve Buscemi, Terry Chimes, John Cooper Clarke, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Matt Dillon, and Joe Strummer

As the lead singer of The Clash from 1977 onward, Joe Strummer changed people's lives forever. Four years after his death, his influence reaches out around the world, more strongly now than ever before. In The Future Is Unwritten, from British film director Julien Temple, Joe Strummer is revealed not just as a legend or musician, but as a true communicator of our times. Drawing on both a shared punk history and the close personal friendship that developed over the last years of Joe's life, Julien Temple's film is a celebration of Joe Strummer--before, during, and after The Clash. (IFC Films)

GENRE(S):	Documentary
DIRECTED BY:	Julien Temple
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 8, 2008 Theatrical: November 2, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	123 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Ireland / UK

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The most powerful documentary I've seen all year, and one of the two or three best films ever made about an artist or musician.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

That rarest of movie biographies: a warts-and-all exploration of the life and times of its subject.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

By focusing on Strummer and giving a fair amount of screen time to his years in the wilderness before and after the Clash, Temple arrives at a more poignant and mature statement of what this committed band was all about.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The film is much more than a biography of the Clash’s guitarist and lead singer: It’s history, criticism, philosophy and politics, played fast and loud.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The triumph of this fond, uncontainable documentary is that it lets you hear that voice again loud and clear.

Philadelphia Inquirer Dan DeLuca

Julian Temple, the British music-documentary director who helmed the 2000 Pistols' flick "The Filth and the Fury," has done such cinematic justice to the punk humanist born John Graham Mellor, who died of a congenital heart defect in 2002.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Captures the Joe Strummer who, in the late 1970s, just about firebombed the rock establishment with his fury.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Temple introduces viewers to Strummer the punster, Strummer the womanizer, and Strummer the poseur, whom his mates could only really talk to when no one else was around.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The film is a rigorously thorough biography and an impassioned accolade. Temple spends as much time on Strummer's life before and after the Clash as he does charting the band's powerful musical and political influence.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

One artist's moving tribute to another.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Like an early Clash number, it's by turns lovely and ugly, loud as bombs and quiet as a revolution's first-thrown stone; it acknowledges the legend while uncovering the truth.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The movie fascinates not so much because of Strummer, whose brooding temperament and flash-and-burn career arc seems pretty routine by rock standards, but because of the way Temple organized and edited the film.

Chicago Tribune Greg Kot

Its moving narrative requires little in the way of embellishment, but Temple’s documentary sometimes becomes too clever for its own good.

San Francisco Chronicle Joel Selvin

One of the most direct and personal music documentaries ever made.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

At its best, it throbs with immediacy, just as Strummer did.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Compelling viewing, even for people who don't care a bit for the punk scene.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

Temple's engrossing portrait of the Clash's late frontman uses endlessly suggestive montage to show how he kept punk's precepts alive, even after he left the music and eventually the earth itself.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

At least the movie never bogs down. But you only get a taste of what made the Clash for a brief period the most exciting band on that side of the Atlantic.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Thirty years down the line, not everyone looks as they once did, so even fans will have trouble putting names to aged faces. Newcomers, meanwhile, will feel hopelessly shut out.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Andrew F. gave it a4:
I'm surprised to see the positive reviews. I felt the film was a sprawling mess that didn't engage. By the end, I was tired of all the nameless faces, poor sound mixing, and the endless montage. My friend who adores Strummer felt he didn't learn anything that any fan would already know. Myself, who knows nothing of Strummer, felt drowned in a sea of confusion. We both felt bored.

Nikki Ikki gave it a10:
Wonderful! Just Wonderful!

keith B. gave it a6:
I had high expectations from the maker of the Filth and the Fury, a real masterpiece. Julien Temple follows up with another excellent doc but at one point I started to think something's not quite right. Ok, the campfire testimonials was pretty bad. But more than that it was the relentlessness of the pacing that didn't work: kind of like watching a train go by, the cars one after another after another. Sorry Julien, I nodded off at one point.

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Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten IFC Films

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
IFC Films