While Metallica plays to a sold-out crowd, hapless young
roadie Trip (Dane DeHaan) is sent across town to retrieve a mystery item from a
disabled truck driver. Along the way, he undergoes a nightmarish journey and
must escape the clutches of a mob led by a sinister masked Horseman.
Directed by Nimrod Antal, Through
the Never is a tale of two movies. As a concert film, it works wonderfully
in showcasing that the 50ish rockers still have it. The band plays its
A-material (“Master of Puppets,” “One,” “Creeping Death,” etc.) with aplomb and
looks and sounds good doing it. You don’t even need to be a Metallica fan
(though it certainly helps) to appreciate it, either: the band plays with enough
infectious energy to bring out the headbanger in all of us. Were this the
entirety of the proceedings, Through the
Never would be a solid hit.
As a concept film, however, it is a dismal failure. First and
foremost, its concept is poorly defined. The mob battles the cops, suggesting a
vaguely anarchist agenda, but don’t go looking for a coherent philosophical vision
here. Nothing in Trip’s journey makes a lick of sense, and that appears to be
very much by design. In addition, while there are few dull moments, the utter
stupidity and lack of purpose make all the flying fists and fire difficult to
enjoy even on a visceral level. Every cool-looking visual serves as a reminder
of how little substance there is behind the style.
Alas, because of the constant alternation between the two
threads, one must take the bad with the good. That’s a real shame because if
the band had either excised Trip’s odyssey entirely or actually bothered to flesh
it out, we would be looking at The Wall
for the Millennial Generation. Instead, we are left with a frustratingly
pointless mess with an above-average soundtrack (which, perplexingly, does NOT
include the title song).
6.25/10
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