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Stoned

Docudrama reminiscent of Last Days and Backbeat

By TOM MEEK | April 11, 2006

2.5 Stars

Stephen Woolley, producer of Absolute Beginners and The Crying Game, takes a turn directing with this docudrama about Brian Jones, the enigmatic fop who helped found the Rolling Stones and later died an ignominious death. The film opens with a Sunset Boulevard–esque shot of Jones (Leo Gregory) floating in the pool of his countryside estate (formerly owned by Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne) and then rewinds in blurs that feel plucked from Backbeat (a Woolley production) and Gus Van Sant’s Last Days. Woolley’s yarn hangs on the mercurial relationship between Jones and his builder/lackey, Frank Thorogood (Paddy Considine). Drugs, babes, full-frontal shots, and mind games ensue (allegedly the basis for Performance, which starred Mick Jagger); yet there’s nary a Stones tune, and when Mick and the boys do show up, they are oddly docile non-entities. Gregory rolls along effortlessly as the washed-out rock star; unfortunately Woolley’s choppy vision can’t sustain the beat.

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