Heading to UK digital download platforms from Monday 6th November, is the new music documentary/concert movie, Duran Duran: A Hollywood High. Directed by Gavin Elder, Vincent Adam Paul, and George Scott, the film talks about the band’s success in the US, before moving onto to provide audiences with a full concert.
Duran Duran: A Hollywood High features new interviews, behind-the-scenes videos, and archival footage. The film (briefly) highlights the band’s rise to fame, with a specific focus on Duran Duran in Los Angeles, and features input from Simon Le Bon and Co.
The first ten-to-fifteen minutes of Duran Duran: A Hollywood High act very much as an introduction piece, setting the scene. This section provides a smattering of information about who the group are and what’s currently going on with them, in order to bring audiences and fans quickly up-to-date.
The movie then segues into a special 40th anniversary set, filmed on the rooftop of The Aster in LA. The set essentially takes over the film from this point onward, abandoning the documentary set-up to serve what becomes a 55-minute concert.
The overall presentation of Duran Duran: A Hollywood High is great, and the concert is beautifully shot. Whether you’re a life-time Duran Duran fan, or you’re merely familiar with their biggest hits, the concert is slick, energetic, and incredibly atmospheric.
From tunes such as A View to a Kill and Notorious, through to White Lines and Ordinary World, all the major numbers are here. The concert also includes new and more recent tracks, such as Invisible and Anniversary, and the mix of old and new material is handled perfectly well, to ensure everyone can get something out of the music.
Le Bon belts out the tracks with his usual panache and distinctive vocals and it is a delight to watch. It’s the sort of set where you just crank the volume up to eleven and allow it to take you wherever it wants to go.
Where Duran Duran: A Hollywood High is a little less successful, and arguably where it stumbles a bit. is in the documentary-style introduction at the beginning of the film. Although the film makes the right choice to rapidly abandon the docu-stuff in favour of simply becoming a concert, the inclusion of interviews and talking head shots at the start is confusing.
Why isn’t this just a concert from the very beginning? In my mind, the filmmakers would have been better to ditch the intro completely and just go straight into the main act.
As it stands, the intro comes across as an afterthought. It’s fine to watch, but it does feel out of place.
I’ve described this film as a music documentary/concert movie because it incorporates elements from both of these subgenres, but in reality the ratio is 80% weighted in one specific direction. Thankfully that 80% is the superb rooftop set, and if you’re up for some Duran Duran fun then you will definitely get it here.
Overall, despite my quibbles about the intro, this is highly enjoyable stuff. Duran Duran demonstrate they’ve still got it, and the rooftop concert is a great way to celebrate a music milestone.
__
Thank you for taking the time to read this review on It’s A Stampede!. For more reviews, check out the recommended reads below.
It's A Stampede! 
Leave a comment