It’s only rock ’n’ roll. But if you like it, you’ll probably like today’s Rolling Stones concert documentary “Shine a Light.”
Interspersed with amusing archival footage from their heyday, director Martin Scorsese captures a New York City benefit performance at the Beacon Theater in 2006 with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood plus guest cameos of youngsters Christina Aguilera and The White Stripes’ Jack White to add a little contemporary relevance. The great old Buddy Guy takes a turn with the band too on Muddy Waters’ “Champagne and Reefer” in a down-and-dirty AARP-defying playoff.
Judging by the Brit quartets’ drawn faces and anorexic bodies, if not by their still contagious energy and beyond-cool attitude, these skeletal sexagenarians appear more like they need to be preserved in formaldehyde and bong water than on celluloid.
But their original fusion of white-boy funk and old-school blues endures in a jammin’ if sadly inoffensive cinematic time capsule for pop posterity.
You’d hope that when the bad boy of provocative filmmaking met the bad boys of song, it would yield something deeply powerful. Scorsese and the Stones each helped revolutionize their artistic mediums. But unlike Scorsese’s previous concert film, The Band’s generation-defining “The Last Waltz” (1978), or the Stones’ previous doc, the scandalous “Gimme Shelter” (1970), “Shine a Light” exists as a less resonant PG-13 affair by comparison to those classics of their day. (“Shine A Light” was apparently edited down to a PG-13 after it was first rated R for some overuse of the f-word.)
Luckily, though the film never reaches the heights of a masterpiece, it does present something that transcends and inspires — and just makes you want to shake your groove thing in the aisles. It’s all about the enduring music of The Rolling Stones. Grounded by the serpentine guitar synergy of Richards with Woods, steadied by Watts’ irresistible beats, Jagger still wails, struts and seduces as the lead singer of many of the most treasured rock tunes of the last 40 years.
The momentum ratchets up slowly with a mix of about 20 standards and rarities. As the gig evolves from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Shattered” and “Tears Go By” through to “Sympathy From the Devil,” “Brown Sugar” and, finally, “Satisfaction,” Stones fans too will be more than satisfied.
‘Shine a Light’
Four stars
» Starring: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Christina Aguilera
» Director: Martin Scorsese
» Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, drug references and smoking
» Running time: 122 minutes
