'Man On The Run' Review

Morgan Neville's documentary follows the story of Paul McCartney post-Beatles.

While last year’s box office hit Becoming Led Zeppelin proved origin stories are still entertaining, an even better music documentary, Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary, showed that sometimes the most interesting parts of a band’s life come after the breakup. The latest from Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom) continues that idea exceptionally, as Man on the Run follows Paul McCartney’s first decade post-Beatles. The simple focus of the film is the creation of McCartney’s follow-up group, Wings, but there’s more to the story than points on a discography timeline.

In the context of the many documentaries about the Fab Four together and separately, Man on the Run easily serves as a sequel to Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back, which chronicles the recording of the album Let It Be and the beginning of the end of the group. It also fits well alongside another of last year’s best music documentaries, One to One: John and Yoko, which depicts a brief moment in John Lennon’s post-Beatles life, as well as his last full concert performance. There’s also a connection with Sean Lennon, who contributes some of the best commentary to Man on the Run.

As with everyone else interviewed for the documentary, Sean Lennon is only heard, never seen. McCartney himself was interviewed six times by Neville for the film. He talks about his heartbreak over the divorce of The Beatles, clears up his relationship with John Lennon over the decade that followed (even his infamous reaction to Lennon’s death is addressed), and comes across as the primary narrator of his story, with help from his brother, his bandmates, and his wife/bandmate, Linda. That’s one of the benefits of keeping all commentary audio-only rather than cutting to talking heads: you can mix in archival interviews with people who are no longer with us.

I may seem biased in my favor toward all-archival documentaries (though this isn’t technically one since it has a few newly shot bits and original animation). But it’s the best way to take the audience back, rather than having them look retrospectively through the points of view of its participants. Man on the Run isn’t a history of Wings, nor is it, thankfully, the sort of documentary where music critics and famous fans tell us why the band was great. It’s a story, played as it’s unfolding, of a man in heartache and in love, working out the next chapter of his life. If you appreciated Neville’s all-archival first half of Steve! (martin), a documentary in 2 pieces more than the second part, you should understand and enjoy what makes Man on the Run work so well.

In a couple of years, Sam Mendes will release four biopics about The Beatles, each movie centered around one of the Fab Four. I’d love to see each member of the group also receive a documentary like Man on the Run. While less time is covered, One to One: John and Yoko and The Concert for Bangladesh show where John Lennon and George Harrison, respectively, were around the same period as McCartney was launching Wings (there’s also a film from last year titled Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, which sounds fitting, but I haven’t seen it). As far as I know, Ringo Starr hasn’t yet gotten his due, and we need an equivalent.