Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash

Being a lifelong Skynyrd fan, I so wanted to like this movie, but it was mostly dreadful. Very centered around Artimus being the good guy, while painting Ronnie in a fairly poor light for most of the film. The only other band member that gets much of a look in is Cassie Gaines. The rest of the band are just a supporting cast. The pilots are made out to be a pair of incompetant buffoons, ejecting fuel instead of redirecting it, not filling the fuel tanks up completely etc. Plus all of their ridiculously naive conversations must be supposition, as both perished in the crash. The acting is, without exception, terrible. Typical dialogue, Artimus, "I was an aviation sergeant in the marines for four years, what's going on with that fuel gauge, it's showing empty..Jeez man, it sounds like the right engine is about to blow." Funny he didn't exercise that knowledge after the previous flight when flames were coming out the engine. The fatal crash itself is an overdrawn, over melodramatic segment, with music more suited to a soap opera. Of course after the crash it's all about Artimus again, being the hero of the day. He single handedly realises the plane is in trouble, discovers all the bodies, then helps to rescue some of them. The most excruciating scene lasts for close to ten minutes, where Artimus clambers over hills and through the undergrowth and across rivers to go and find help. The last 30 minutes is basically Artimus' recovery and post crash trauma. In his ego centric world there is no mention of the other surviving members, or any real acknowledgement of those who died. Pitiful. Lost all respect for the guy after watching this.

I believe the story, but this movie is purely the self indulgent tale of Pyle and how he saved the day. It is a great story that deserves to be told, but maybe as a Netflix show and not a movie that I had to pay for. In the beginning of the movie, Pyle says this story is not just about the crash, but about the music. I disagree with that. This movie has little to do with the music or with the band or even their story. I would love to see a "Bohemian Rhapsody" or "The Dirt" style production of the full Lynyrd Skynyrd story. The production quality of this movie was very poor.

It hurts to write this, it hurts to kick Artimus, but this is dreadful. I just hope he got a nice earner out of it because the movie has no merit whatsoever and helping Artimus stay afloat is the only positive I can glean from it. In the first scene Artie (or the actor playing him) is playing drums and his wife alerts him - "Ronnie Van Zant is on the phone!" "From Lynyrd Skynyrd?" he replies. No, your DENTIST Ronnie Van Zant! It starts as it means to go on. Artie bookends the movie, giving his band APB a plug at the end, and boy, does he inhabit the movie in between. He's an expert pilot ("Four years in the marines!"), he can do emergency surgery, he can struggle for miles with serious injuries (I'm happy to say he suffered torn cartilage in his chest and nothing more serious in the crash) then help with the rescue effort blitzing anyone who stands between him and his bandmates (at the crash site and at the hospital). It's all about him! When I heard the band launch into (a really poor version of) Call me the Breeze early on, I thought good, stories of no access to the music were untrue. Then I found that that brief blast of music was all there was - it being a cover version they were allowed to play it. For this reason Skynyrd opened the show with it (!)at one of those totally unrealistic movie gigs - you know, social distancing where a mosh pit should be, Skynyrd at their peak playing a stage the size of a cigarette packet. As a means of making life easier for Artimus, great - as a movie, virtually worthless.

The movie is bad. Although I like Lynyrd Skynyrd very much, this film is clearly made to show the importance of Artimus Pyle in the band - including pointing out that he was the one who got help to save the survivors of the plane crash. After the accident, Pyle only took part in the band's commemorative tour with the other surviving members. After that, he refused to continue playing just because of the money. Since then, he has been excluded from paying homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd's new lineup at shows - which today only has Garry Rossington from the original members-. I think the attitude of Pyle is very certain, that without Ronnie in the band there would be no reason for her to continue to exist. MONEY TALKS!

I love Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I love movies - this had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, this movie is just bad. So much over dramatization and it cannot be overestimated the level self importance Artimus has for himself. Even if all of this story were true, I can't imagine telling the story this way. Do not recommend.