IT’S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Christopher Duddy’s IT’S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES feels long at 84 minutes, but that’s not a criticism. All that means is the movie, which is about the life of the Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan has it’s tone in the right place.  It’s a film about a lifetime, and the dynamism of the tone allows the film to feel like an intimate epic.

It helps that the time period covered here is absolutely fascinating. The earlier moments of the film take place in Seattle at the beginning of the punk band scene. The energy that is generated by Duff and the other subjects of the documentary is potent, and exhilarating. There’s an earnestness to listening to Duff talk like you’re talking to an old friend as he pulls artifacts of days past out of a box. . The description of creating a stage out of wood and plastic milk crates at the age of 15 brings a longing nostalgia that runs through of many great films, such as Almost Famous and most recently Sing Street. The creation of Guns N’ Roses is depicted in much the same way. The palpable excitement of the time period shines through here beautifully.

Soon, though the film needs to come back to focus on it’s main subject, Duff McKagan. The film shows McKagan’s fight against alcoholism, and drugs.  McKagan has been on an undeniably difficult journey. even if his exploits seem to be a little cliched for the genre of the music documentary. Then again those cliches have to come from somewhere. It’s a compelling and very uplifting story, but it seems like something that’s been made before. That doesn’t really break the engagement of the story here though. Documentaries eliminate the sense of disbelief for the most part, and that allows the power of the stories told by them to make a startlingly clear impact. Duff is also a very expressive person to listen to, and the way he lights up when discussing the good days as well as the intensity he brings to the discussion of the bad ones creates a certain charisma for the film that undeniably works. The story of an idealistic rocker who gets wrapped up in drugs and alcohol only to return to a better way of life has been told before, but it’s special through the eyes of Duff and the interviewees.

All of that goes a long way for the documentary too. For as engaging as the subject matter of IT’S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES is the direction is marred by a flat aesthetic that the film never really escapes. There’s attempts at adding effects and animation to change up this feeling but much of it looks cheap. Cheap effects aren’t enough to break a story though. The idealistic beginnings of the piece are a great contrast to the heavier middle and ending acts, making the film feel tangible. That’s more than flat direction could ever bring down.

IT’S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES manages to give life to an old story, and it does that very well. Technically it’s not wildly ambitious, but the soulful interviews manage to make up for any problems that arise in that. Duff McKagan has lived a fascinating life and IT’S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES lets us go through it with him.

4 out of 5 Stars

XLrator Media will release IT’S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES in select theaters on June 3.