I won't attempt to cover the detail that so many others have simply to add. Sheryl plays Astrid very well, she implies the flavour of those early days of popular music very much in the raw. Not musically perfect or electronically sanitised but real thumping music for kids which they (and I was of that time albeit a little younger than the characters) loved. Remember there had been nothing like it before. Even Elvis's influence lacked the raw dark, smoky, sweaty feel of Hamburg, the Cavern Club and many venues that have disappeared from history. Astrid's art work through pictures captured the early feel of the Beatles and their lives/times like no other. When you look at those photos you can almost touch that slightly dangerous era.The various films about the Beatles early years all contribute varying flavours of that time without individually capturing the whole and I would recommend Beatles/film buffs to look up and watch all versions.Most of all the individuals.John was THE leader. Paul the workaholic perfectionist. George dedicated to improving his art while not taking any of it too seriously. Stuart doing his best for his friend John but inevitably his destiny (sadly abbreviated) was art. Pete was only transitional and Ringo who had already performed with them became an important factor. Tony Sheridan and others in Hamburg made important contributions and Brian Epstien was the final and very important cog.Enjoy all of the films.

Is "Backbeat" a factually accurate depiction of the Beatles' stint in Hamburg? Probably not, to the dismay of pedants who have perused the (by my rough count) 5,000,000 books written about the history of the Fab Four. But the various milieu in which the characters lived -- the bleakness of Liverpool, the sleaze of Hamburg -- is beautifully conveyed and gives you a better sense of what shaped John Lennon's tortured genius than any dry recitation of recording-session dates. You get a nice sense of the Beatles' looming threat to Britain's staid popular culture in an early scene of John Lennon and best mate Stuart Sutcliffe sitting in a trad jazz club, wearing leather jackets and heckling the band. You also get a good idea of Hamburg's sordidness from a quick-cut stripper montage after the lads have departed England for the Reeperbahn. Musically, the band performances don't sound exactly like the early Beatles, but the filmmakers choose wisely when they asked a group of indie-music all-stars like Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) to play on the soundtrack. The loud, slightly dissonant take on early Beatles classics are as vivid and startling as the Beatles must have been to early 60s audiences. Finally, the film doesn't gloss over any bad behavior -- there's drugs and whoring galore, and Lennon is depicted as an obnoxious if engaging genius. ("How did you get to be such an ***hole?" asks Astrid Kirchherr. "Practice," responds Lennon.) It's a well-made, lively portray of The Artists As A Bunch Of Horny Young Men on Speed, and if a few dates get muddled, well, you're supposed to look those up in books anyway, not get them from movies.What keeps "Backbeat" from being brilliant, sadly, is the central character of Stuart Sutcliffe, who comes off as a wooden, shallow pretty boy. I don't know if that's a fair portrayal of the real Sutcliffe or a side effect of asking Stephen Dorff to play him. Lennon and Astrid are competing for Sutcliffe's love, and their rivalry is a lot more interesting than the relationship either have with Stuart himself, probably because they're stronger characters played by better actors. (Ian Hart is a charmingly snotty Lennon, Sheryl Lee is a sweet and attractive Astrid.) Sutcliffe's tragic downfall would be more compelling if (A) we didn't already know about it, and (B) Dorff wasn't such a stiff. Whatever, you're watching this movie because you're a Beatles fan, you don't need a love story. As for the supporting characters (now legends), Paul McCartney doesn't come off all that well (but he never does on film); Cynthia Lennon gets a surprisingly sympathetic treatment (she's a cipher or a shrew elsewhere); and George, Ringo, Pete Best et al all sort of lurk in the shadow of John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's opportunism, just like in real life.

Riding a voracious roller-coaster and watching Ian Softley's "Backbeat" could be considered one in the same. From the excitement of the opening credits, to the lackluster conversations between infamous Beatle John Lennon and former-band member Stuart Sutcliffe in Liverpool, to the empowering nights of playing music in Hamburg, to the cliché drama over a girl named Astrid, to the emotional true formation of the Beatles, this film should have a subtext that it could, if viewed in one sitting, cause stomach butterflies or cramps. With Softley's eye, the audience is strapped in tightly as "Backbeat" goes up and down, left and right, in and out of darkness, and in the end all you are left with is a perturbed expression captured on an invisible camera. One must ask the question, is this film about the choices of Sutcliffe, or is it just another chapter about the Beatles and their rise to popularity?With equal screen time being shared between crucial friendship Lennon and Sutcliffe, the argument can be set that Softley struggles with who to allow the camera to capture, the charismatic Ian Hart (giving us a fresh face to Mr. Lennon), or the subdue and forced accent of Stephen Dorff playing Sutcliffe. For this critic, an entire film based off Hart's performance, or seen through Hart's Lennon's eyes would have been sheer icing on Softley's cake, but since we were forced to stifle through Dorff's performance – we are stuck with him, and where this film ultimately suffered. What makes this roller-coaster worth perhaps riding a second time is Softley's ability to cast stronger secondary characters that seem more viewable than our front and center players. Gary Bakewell's McCartney is perfection, while O'Neill, Williams, and whoever played Astrid's original lover were complete eye-candy. Each actor grew their characters further than the page, and used this film as a showcase for their talent. "Backbeat" is worth the rental for the sheer background characters alone, and for Hart's John Lennon, but our central characters, Sutcliffe and Astrid, seemed cliché-ly perfect, too instantaneous in love, and at times purely fake. What forces me to say this are the scenes that the two (Dorff and Lee) share together. While the art they create is full of passion, the chemistry that they share is not. Softley is too generous with these two – giving us no reality to base them in. While the 60s were carefree in nature, where does Astrid stumble upon the castle in which she lives? Money seems of no concern, and it is confusing (with no pre-story) how easily Sutcliffe can give up his best friend's band and the random disasters that can be caused at German limbo parties. If this were a true story of simply Sutcliffe, than we would have followed his eyes, intermixed with the Beatles as a cameo, and really seen his artwork. It isn't until the final act of this film that his artwork gets any recognition, which again makes it difficult to understand Sutcliffe's tangent rational.Enough with the negative; what was engrossing about this film? "Backbeat", while playing to typical biopic clichés, still maintained a level of entertainment. The songs would walk in and catch your toes tapping along. Softley used American songs to give the Beatles that sense of "cool" as well as to demonstrate how well they performed on stage. Their energy, both the actual Beatles, as well as Ian Hart and his group had enough energy for anyone watching this film. They were charismatic, exciting, and destined to be stars. This was obvious from the beginning, the Beatles did it all themselves by performing eight days a week, with little to no food or sleep. They captured the essence of "grunge". For me, that was enough to continue with this film from beginning to end. Sutcliffe's artwork, because it was so thinly used in the film, was exciting to see as well. The same can be said for Astrid's photography. The Beatles' art (both music and printed) was brilliant, these characters were brilliant in their lives, but I just felt like Softley dumb-ed them down for audiences. The final act was pure rubbish, again with the opportunity to see Sutcliffe do his work – yet limbo miserably, that it nearly sours the remaining moments of this film. Outside of the story, flawed as it was, Softley and his cinematographer should be fully credited for the roller-coaster sensation felt throughout the film. There would be this great scene of Astrid looking at the band that would steal your breath, and then we would jump to the band – in what felt like a different filming ratio, and then back to Astrid. It felt like the audience was saying, "Ohhh … urgggg …. Ohhhh".Overall, "Backbeat" was an entertaining film, in fact, it stands above the mediocre level of entertainment to say that I could view this movie a second time – but it would be with much argument and comments through the peanut gallery throughout. The music stands out, Softley defines the time perfectly (almost as if anyone who could carry a tune could swoon those German women), but he cannot define his characters. This is a biopic, in the short sense of the word, about Stuart Sutcliffe, yet the audience watches nearly equal screen time between he and John Lennon. While I agree Lennon's influence on Sutcliffe and their friendship is worth the film reel it is printed on, I do not believe it fully grasps the art and lifestyle that Sutcliffe embodied. With a hodgepodge of beautiful scenes, why couldn't Softley use that tricky camera work to define Sutcliffe's art – to make his art the second main character? "Backbeat" was an entertaining two hours, but not worth a second repeat.Grade: *** out of *****

It's difficult to come up with the superlatives enough to describe a film such as "Backbeat"; a film that grabbed me from the first moment I saw it and has never let go. It is a film that has everything, from great acting, great music and great dialogue, right down to the underpinning love story between John, Astrid and Stuart. Ian Hart is a revelation as Lennon, which detracts the attention from equally superb performances from Stephen Dorff and Sheryll Lee. Certainly Dorff has not bettered his performance in this since. If you haven't seen this film, and whether you have or have not any interest in the Beatles, then get it on video or DVD now. 10/10.