Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Documentary > Rock > Speculation > Jimi Hendrix - The Last 24 Hours

Jimi Hendrix – The Last 24 Hours (Documentary)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C+     Documentary: C+

 

 

Was Jimi Hendrix not just another victim of a drug overdose, but part of a murder conspiracy?  So many people, especially when they are Rock stars and popular, eventually have a conspiracy theory made about them.  The latest one, Jimi Hendrix – The Last 24 Hours (2004) ties his support of The Black Panthers and public exclamations that change was needed with a government plot that (once again) includes organized crime and the FBI.

 

Well, I cannot claim to know much about Hendrix personally, but why this theory I surfacing al of the sudden is more difficult to believe.  Whether there is some truth to it is another story.  Maybe some of this has some validity, but the way this program is constructed, people who know and claim to know him keep repeating the same basic information over and over again.  I was never totally convinced of the possibility, though this did open the door to the remote possibility.  One problem is that the creators do not seem to know much about Rock music and their documentary skills are certainly in question.

 

Lasting about an hour, this sometimes feels thrown-together and there are plenty of overlaps.  When a program has to repeat itself this much, either the intended audience is considered dense and dumb, or the makers have problems believing everything they claim themselves.  Like Freebird – The Movie on Lynryd Skynyrd, this gets very populist and condescending when it discusses what could have been or repeats the idea of greatness of the artist(s) in obvious, flat, shallow terms that feels more like a snake oil salesman and con artist than anyone who truly cares.  The cold compilation feel undermines anything The Last 24 Hours in tends, making this a morbid curio.

 

The full frame 1.33 X 1 image has the varied image quality of most documentaries, with some of the footage outright muddy.  The newer interviews were shot on PAL professional analog equipment, with Hendrix offering the best materials worth seeing.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is sometimes monophonic, but never has any surrounds, Pro Logic or otherwise.  I give it points for actually having some Hendrix classics on the soundtrack.  The only extras on the DVD are a discography, stills section, and 43-frame biography, while the DVD case contains an illustrated 32-page booklet with obvious misspellings showing this was not put together by fans.  The Last 24 Hours is very, very mixed and anyone wanting to see it should go in with low expectations.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com