IT MIGHT GET LOUD (Davis Guggenheim). 97 minutes. Opens Friday (September 25). For venues, times, and trailers, see Movies. Rating: NNN
White Stripes frontman Jack White hammers away at a shabby slab of wood, an empty pop bottle and some loose wire. He plugs his contraption into a speaker and – bada-bing! – he’s slapped together a screeching homemade electric guitar.[rssbreak]
That display of ingenuity and passion is as good as it gets in this slick but chaotic love song to Jimi Hendrix’s favourite tool. An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim does for the long wooden instrument what Kenneth Anger pulled off in Kustom Kar Kommandos, eroticizing it with golden-hued shots that either caress its curves or just rock with it.
White, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and U2’s The Edge recall their fondest memories playing and listening to their most coveted instrument. Added to the mix: archival concert footage, new tunes and peculiar distractions like watching The Edge use his BlackBerry during some tai chi exercises.
Page is dapper, Edge deep, while White keeps the film going with his humility and youthful dreams. But together they have no chemistry, and the much-hyped conversation between them near the end yields nothing more than a jam session.
That may be electrifying for guitar aficionados, but for the rest of us it’s just three guys sitting around stroking their precious phallic object.
