Julien Temple's slick mock rock doc "The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle" was a delightfully irreverent, but extremely embellished and thus less than accurate depiction of the Sex Pistols' 26 legendary months of unmitigated excess, success, pandemonium and inevitable failure. This far more scruffy and honest down-to-earth documentary sets the record straight sans huckster impresario Malcom McLaren's gross self-serving distortions of the truth. The surviving band members -- angry, fiercely snide and abrasive working class anti-star front-man Johnny Rotten, fellow surly band members Steve Jones and Paul Cook, token happy average guy out Glen Matlock -- are all interviewed, saying in their own shockingly candid, open, often profane and hilariously spiky words their savagely upfront thoughts and feelings about the whole bloody two year fracas that was the band's abrupt and chaotic, yet still glorious and influential reign.We learn about the individual band members' sad, crappy childhoods, the gray, decaying, trash-littered rot and social upheaval of mid 70's London, the group's musical influences (glam rock and heavy metal!), how the punk movement initially encouraged raw displays of individualism and equalized the sexes, the Sex Pistols' primitively rattling three-chord sonic assault was purposefully ugly, sludgy, tuneless and egalitarian, the Pistols' infamous (and truly riotous) foul-mouthed interview on an insipid morning TV chatshow, the band's disastrous record contract with EMI, the Thames River party, how the song "God Save the Queen" put Rotten's life in considerable jeopardy, Sid Vicious beating up punk journalist Nick Kent, punk's unfortunate downslide into trendy chic mainstream nullity, Nancy Spungen's fatal hold on Sid (the other band members vehemently abhorred her), the abortive feature film "Who Killed Bambi?" (with Sting in his film debut!), Sid's tragic untimely death from a heroin overdose, and the Sex Pistols' horrendously unsuccessful final nail-in-the-coffin American tour (the frightfully hostile yank audiences expected a freakshow). Moreover, we find out that Sid popularized pogoing at punk clubs, McLaren never paid the band a dime, and that a '77 Christmas benefit gig was probably the Sex Pistols' best ever show.The grainy, gritty, usually ratty and washed-out mostly color, sometimes black and white unpolished archival footage of the band at its supremely rowdy and astonishingly outrageous peak possesses an irresistibly grungy and oddly intimate appeal while the crude blaring music -- such killer classic numbers as "Anarchy in the U.K.," "God Save the Queen," "Pretty Vacant," and "Holidays in the Sun" among 'em -- roars away with a furiously brutal abandon. Johnny Rotten sagely comments at the very end that the Sex Pistols were probably too good for their own good to last very long, but luckily this first-rate picture vividly immortalizes their notorious exploits and substantial legacy for posterity's sake.

In interviews done at the time of the film's release, Julien Temple talked about the genesis of this film, and the reasoning behind some of the peculiar and novel gimmicks he used. Basically he had some out-takes that he had filmed for "The Great Rock & Roll Swindle", as well as some random British TV recordings from the 1970's that he had recorded on one of the first commercial VCR's. Temple wanted to use this material to tell the story of the Sex Pistols from their point of view, rather than Malcolm Maclaren's point of view presented in "The Great Rock & Roll Swindle". He said he included the ancillary material such as the video recordings to give a flavor of the times. The reason he gave for recording the living Pistols in witness-protection style silhouette (and Maclaren in a mask) was to hide their age and make it seem like the interviews were contemporaneous with the other footage, especially with regard to the interview of a non-silhouetted Sid Vicious in London's Hyde Park in 1978. In practice, the silhouettes are annoying and repetitive and make it hard to identify who is speaking on first viewing.This film has exactly the same flaws as Temple's original effort, "The Great Rock & Roll Swindle" - its account of the Pistols' story is a biased, inaccurate, incomplete, poorly-structured mess, frequently interrupted by unnecessary, gimmicky, distracting, pretentious irrelevant inserts that have nothing to do with the main story. Only this time, instead of portraying the Sex Pistols as mindless puppets in a cynical commercial ploy by a clever manager, they are portrayed (implicitly via news footage from the 1970's) as idealists making political statements about their society, financially exploited by a useless Maclaren. Both slants are fantasy. The Pistols have repeatedly pointed out they were not political, although Rotten has in recent years started parroting some of the fantasies written about him and the punk scene by intellectuals; any quasi-political imagery foisted on the band was largely the doing of the supposedly useless Maclaren and his cronies. We see all the usual tricks of agenda-pushing documentaries, with isolated, possibly irrelevant snippets of visual interest (e.g. a fat racist squirming through a window to rant to a TV camera) edited together to imply relatedness. What's more, many of these clips appear to date from long after the Pistols formed. Likewise we see the bad guys (Maclaren and cronies) in unflattering shots and the good guys (the Pistols) in flattering or neutral shots. That's just childish, as are the sudden dramatic increases in volume every time a Pistols song starts playing.Instead of Rock & Roll Swindle's cutaways to shots of Maclaren singing, mugging and pontificating, we get Olivier playing Richard III or TV ads or weather reports or forgotten comedians. These non-sequiturs are supposedly justified on the grounds of Rotten citing his influences or as a reflection of life in the 1970's, but it goes on and on and on long after the original point (if any) was made, until the original point is lost. When Temple was asked if there was any Pistols footage left unused after "The Filth and The Fury", he said there wasn't really, apart from additional concert footage which he considered redundant. This, I suspect, is the real reason for the excessive irrelevant footage, i.e. filler to get a commercial length for a feature film. I would dearly love to have seen the "redundant" concert footage instead. It would have been infinitely more interesting, entertaining and relevant. Temple's TV archives could have interest in their own right, but they belong in a separate documentary.Ignoring the inept, pretentious directing, this film does have many priceless moments, and does reveal a number of obscure or unknown facts about the Pistols, although I was surprised at how little unused footage there really was, and how much was reused from the final cut of "Swindle". The Pistols are shown to be funny, intelligent and personable, far removed from the punk caricatures. The 3 Johns, and John's closeness to Sid, and John's crying over his dead friend are a revelation. So too, the Pistols' last concert before their American tour, a firemen's benefit with lots of young dancing children joining the band in a cream pie fight - not very punk, but oddly touching. We see footage from the Pistols' very earliest days, together with some of the bizarre early fans like Sue Catwoman highlighting the bohemian roots of the punk scene. We get to see footage of the disgusting Nancy Spungeon. In a remarkable stroke of luck, Temple captured skinny teenage punk fan Shane MacGowan, long before he was famous, doing an acapella rendition of "Anarchy in the UK" on the grounds of a council flat, and schoolteacher Sting playing a gay rapist in a scene from the abortive "Who Killed Bambi" movie. But by far the funniest scene in the film was the intro to a 1978 American TV music show, in which the Pistols were the most normal, most successful, and least ridiculous-looking band to appear on the program.In summary this film was a wasted opportunity on account of the talentless director. But it's still essential for the odd gem of obscure Pistols footage, which even Temple couldn't mess up. If you want to see the definitive Pistols documentary, check out the "Never Mind The Bolloks" episode of the "Classic Albums" TV documentary series.

The first Julian Temple documentary on the Sex Pistols, 'The Great Rock n'Roll Swindle' was a gimmicky treatment that suggested the creation of the band was all a clever confidence trick perpetuated by Malcolm Maclaren. In his version the Pistols were a personal creation that deliberately manipulated the media and the 'suits' that ran the music industry into paying out vast amounts of cash even when the band failed to produce any material. This second version of events is a little more honest. Maclaren is shown to be a self-deluded egotist, the real driving force being 'Johnny Rotten', and the band, far from having the upper hand, were in fact ripped off financially by the very people they were supposed to be rebelling against.It all ended in a shambolic final concert where Rotten wails out 'No Fun' for 15 minutes and then walks off with a smirking, 'Ever felt you've been cheated?'Trouble is; this is a lie as well. The Pistols carried on after Lydon left; sad fun and games with the Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs and Sid Vicious' infamous rendering of 'My Way' being the 'highlights'. What's more, within months of Johnny Rotten's noble statement about not selling out at the end of the documentary, the Pistols reformed in the 21st century and gave progressively pathetic concerts.It's still an interesting documentary but I guess the myth has now become so mixed up with the legend that anything approaching the truth is lost for ever.This documentary does feature, however, an archive interview with Sid Vicious – whose real name was John, Lydon affectionately remembers - which I have never seen before. It says more about the times than anything else in the film. Although dressed in his trade mark Nazi t-shirt and initially punctuated with all the predictable anarchic attitudes, this veneer gradually slips away to reveal a young naïve man, who's life along with his heroin addiction was spiraling out of control. No fun, indeed.

I've seen my share of rock documentaries, but this one levels them all. This is a film for anyone who's ever seen "The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle" and said "Oh, for f***sake! Could we get some f***ing TRUTH in here?!" Julien Temple apparently felt the weight of guilt upon his shoulders after aiding and abetting Malcolm McLaren in his insipid attempt to take credit, not only for every single thing the Sex Pistols ever did, but for the creation of punk rock (which goes all the way back to the end of the '60s, if you wanna get technical...so get stuffed, Malcolm).Here, Temple interviews the band in silhouette and throws at us a barrage of great clips from the hundreds of hours that he shot during the making of "Swindle"...included are several bits that were featured in the aforementioned film, but they're given a different spin, which actually has a ring of truth about it...as well as a great deal that we've never seen before, no doubt because that footage undermines the whole concept of the first film...namely: "I am Malcolm McLaren...the Sex Pistols were nothing...it was all me...worship me now."It's quite refreshing to hear Steve Jones (the only member of the band who ever really liked McLaren to begin with) musing as to how "everyone in the world knows Malcolm's full of s***." That's right...we do. And especially enjoyable were the band's recollections of how McLaren was panicking after the infamous Bill Grundy incident. Funny, when you watch "Swindle," it seems like it was all his idea...just like everything else. Oh, Malcolm...can your own life be so meaningless that you feel the need to take credit for everyone else's actions? Nevermind...that's rhetorical.What this film gives us that its predecessor lacked (aside from the absence of staged McLaren ego-trip material) is a historically accurate account of the band's existence, from its inception to its inevitable self-destruction.Not to mention that it actually contains genuine human emotion...something which "Swindle" lacked altogether. Especially touching are John's recollections of Sid Vicious's death...and how it was turned into more money in McLaren's pockets. "You can't get more evil than that, can you?" This was someone that John cared for like a brother, and his absence still hurts, even 20 years later.Overall, this film delivers the goods in every conceivable way. It is not only the ONLY worthwhile documentary about the Sex Pistols...it's also the best rock & roll documentary I have ever seen. Anyone with an interest in the musical evolution of the 20th century should miss this film at their own expense.