Hendrix Movie Review

Wood Harris does an admirable job at portraying the late, legendary Jimi Hendrix, but VH-1's Behind the Music has more depth than this tepid docudrama. Showing Hendrix as a musical genius but utterly lacking any business sense, Hendrix gives us little more than a bunch of women and a procession of drugs to mark the life of one of the biggest musical pioneers of our time. Why waste 20 minutes cutting back and forth to footage of an "interview" with Hendrix before his death? Show the man's life!

The production values of the made-for-Showtime picture aren't much better, relying on goofy camera intercutting and a ridiculous overuse of black-and-white videotape (hint to production team: this was not a popular photographic medium in 1966). Oddly enough, this might all be explained by the fact that Hendrix had no producer. Sure could've used one.