Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

Oct 2006; rpt Wed 7 Feb 2007
A candid documentary about the trials and tribulations of the heavy metal band.

Enter the comp to win 'Metallica: Reflections' DVD book set.

Struggling to come up with material for the 'St Anger' album, front man James Hetfield checks into rehab while the rest of the band enlist a therapist.

Nicknamed 'Alcoholica' by journalists in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly responsible for saving heavy metal from itself in the 1990s, Metallica are arguably the greatest band the genre has spawned.

Some Kind Of Monster, a candid fly-on-the wall documentary - rockumentary, if you will - slots neatly into the not-very-extensive canon of revealing and entertaining rock profiles that genuinely explore their subject.

Moreover, for those unfamiliar with 'Master Of Puppets' or 'Ride The Lightning', the film exceeds its original aim - to document the troubled sessions prior to Metallica's tenth album 'St Anger' - and evolves into a minor epic concerned with fractured relationships, artistic frustration and the strange business of life as a fortysomething, multi-millionaire rock star for whom the music seems to have died. Read full feature on C4 Film site