Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A years-in-the-making documentary on the legendary punk band the Ramones. Through a mixture of archival footage, archival and new interviews with all members of the band's various lineups, and new interviews with a number of their contemporaries, the film traces the peaks and valleys the band experienced over the course of its 20-plus year career before disbanding in 1995.
A solid, comprehensive rock documentary that benefits enormously from its subject matter — the Ramones are one of the most consequential bands in punk history. The film does well to gather interviews from all band lineups and contemporaries, painting a portrait of both creative triumph and interpersonal dysfunction. The storytelling is engaging if not particularly innovative in documentary form, relying on the standard talking-heads-and-archival-footage approach that limits its cinematographic ambition. The ending carries genuine emotional weight given the deaths of several members and the band's bittersweet legacy. Novelty is moderate — the Ramones themselves are singular, but the documentary form used here is fairly conventional for a music doc of its era.