How do you make a movie about CBGB in the structure of a routine narrative? Where do you start? Why do we have to see the origins of CBGB through a comedy lens? “CBGB” is what Hollywood envisions the origins of CBGB were. It’s clean, it’s sanitary, it’s inoffensive, and it paints some of the most iconic bands in rock music as mere footnotes in the world of the iconic New York club. To make things worse, its star looks really bored with the material, almost as if he’s slogging through a character and a script that he doesn’t quite understand.
Alan Rickman plays Hilly Kristal, a failed businessman who is attempting to open up his third business. He seeks out a new club to play Country Bluegrass and Blues, and hires his best friend, and a drug abuser named Idaho who is an aspiring violinist. By happenstance and being in the right place at the right time, Hilly begins hiring up and coming bands that play the opposite of what he intended to put on parade. Except they begin to change the music scene and New York as a whole, prompting the gradual fame and adoration of CBGB as a scene for groundbreaking punk and pop. You’d never know it by the movie, but it’s much more exciting and revolutionary than director Randall Miller makes it seem.
The music is amazing in this movie, there’s no argument against that. I just would have loved to see a movie that explored the relationship and synergy between CBGB and the love of music, slapping it together in to one long beautiful movie with drama, comedy, and passion. Instead, “CBGB” feels like a pilot for a sitcom where much of what happens never skirts the suggested rating, and much of the story feels so bland and uninteresting. Director Randall Miller attempts to add some sort of meta-Andy Warhol vibe to the film by turning much of the scene shifts in to a comic book panel, with occasional word bubbles. Almost as if he’s giving us a patronizing pulp art glimpse in to the story of one of the greatest rock havens of all time.
Does the movie satirize CBGB, or revere it? I was never really sure, honestly. The whole of “CBGB” is very uneven and confusing, with occasional dips in to drama, tragedy, and dark comedy that are never sure what it’s trying to get across. You figure a movie that features the Ramones and Blondie would be so extraordinary and energetic, but “CBGB” makes them seem so mundane and unimportant. Despite the solid supporting cast, “CBGB” really isn’t the best place to learn about the dynasty of punk rock and new wave. Just go seek out the music featured in the film, and keep digging deeper in to the bands featured and omitted here, and never look back. You don’t need a movie to give you an education in music. CBGB’s deserves a great film, and “CBGB” just isn’t it.