- Network: HBO
- Series Premiere Date: Nov 15, 2012
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
If you weren't born when the Stones broke all the rules, you will get to see why these old guys were/are the greatest of all time. If you were around then you already know, but you still won't believe it.
-
No cameras were allowed for this [interviews with the band], making it sometimes difficult to decipher just who's talking during the otherwise brilliantly edited archival footage assembled by filmmaker Brett Morgen
-
Using new audio-only interviews with the Stones as invisible tape, [director Brett Morgen] splices 50 years of footage into a 110-minute education, remixing the work of earlier filmmakers with splendid editing and a critical eye.
-
If Crossfire Hurricane doesn't offer much that's new, or tell a spellbinding story along the way, it still vividly captures how they became legends in the first place.
-
Crossfire Hurricane is deeply enjoyable for the songs--from "She's a Rainbow" to "Brown Sugar"--and for the extraordinary trove of archival film it has assembled.
-
It's not a movie for music geeks, in the sense of unpacking the band's influences or closely analyzing how their songs worked. Instead it links the music to the members' stories, trying to capture how the electricity of the group's personalities created art. It's not a revelation, but it's an intimate story of the band.
-
[A] thoroughly captivating Rolling Stones documentary.
-
It's a more visceral impression of a band on fire, and as such it offers plenty of satisfaction.
-
The goal is not an academic history but a backstage, groupie-eye view. While it's familiar territory for longtime Stones fans, it works.
-
Crossfire Hurricane deftly blends vintage concert footage, TV broadcasts, pieces of key songs and clips from other documentaries in with voiced-over highlights from 80 hours of fresh interviews with current and past band members--all conducted off-screen.
-
Though they certainly cover the heady early days, filled with screaming girls and their cultivated persona as the anti-Beatles, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards aren't afraid to keep it real. Both show some interesting insights into their success.
-
Hurricane is a whirling impressionistic painting of the band, beautifully conveying the energy, drive and genius of the Stones, more or less chronologically within the basic flashback structure.
-
It is, for all its two and a half hours, a streamlined retelling, organized more around energy and atmosphere than facts and figures.
-
Crossfire Hurricane is business as usual from the Stones, and good fun on its own terms. However, anyone expecting buried treasure or fresh insights into ancient rock folklore will get no satisfaction here.
-
Compared with Martin Scorsese's exhaustive docus about Bob Dylan and George Harrison, Crossfire feels almost too brisk and workmanlike. But like a good concert, it ably balances major hits, back-catalogue oddities and plenty of showmanship.
-
The Stones have been better showcased and explained than they are in Crossfire Hurricane. Still, as personalities and musicians, they never fail to provide a good measure of satisfaction.
-
while there is always another clip or song of interest, there's a lot lost in the middle.
Awards & Rankings
There are no user reviews yet.