Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story

You really can't have too high expectations for a made-for-cable TV movie. And made-for-VH1 at that. With that in mind, Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story was a decent little bio-film. Yes, its too short and sometimes plays fast & loose with the facts, but it gets its main point across pretty decently. Namely, that Def Leppard were always best friends first and a great rock band second.

Although the film opens with Rick Allen's accident and then flashes back from there, it doesn't overly dwell on just the negative. It makes it clear that these were stand-up guys devoted equally to their friendship as to their music.

And even though the actors were obviously chosen based on their strong physical resemblance to each band member, all of them give really strong performances. They all come across as real people, and not at all as mere hired lookalikes. And even though the role is severely limited, Anthony Michael Hall gets the gist of producer Mutt Lange's role (although they made him American when he's actually British).

A few time-line errors: They show the band working on Pour Some Sugar on Me while Rick is in the hospital and before Mutt Lange rejoins them in the studio. In fact, Sugar was the last song on the Hysteria album to be written and it was in fact Lange who recognized it as a potential smash hit and insisted on its development & inclusion (even though they were already way behind schedule).

Also the final concert scene where Rick plays live again for the first time, this was actually at an outdoor concert in Germany. But there actually were people grumbling about a "freak show" in reference to a one-armed drummer (not fans, but members of another band that was also playing that gig). It does also accurately portray that Allen performed without a hitch that day and was warmly welcomed back by the audience.

The real members of Def Leppard themselves have gone on record saying that even though they had no input to it, overall, they were reasonably satisfied with this docudrama.

I've been a fan of Def Leppard since 1983, and truly, this movie did a great job! It wasn't perfect, some artistic license had to be taken, but it was a fine job by the actors, writers and producers! I agree with the previous poster that I wish it had extended further into the Leps' history to include the loss of Steve Clark, the addition of Vivian Campbell and the current status of the band, but as these wonderful band of die-hards have been around since 1977, I suppose that would have been a bit of a tall order! (Unless of course, they wanted to make the fans TRULY happy and do a two-parter! I'd be all for that!)

When Def Leppard returned to MTV with Hysteria, it was a revolution. The band members were adolescent friends who aspired to leave their Sheffield lives behind them. Instead, they became a leader in the music industry. Hysteria's legacy still lives on to those of us who remember it. The film reminded me of their ability to triumph over tragedy. They were all young when they rose to success. Of course, they hit obstacles like alcohol, drugs, and money. When Rick loses his arm in a car accident, he is determined to return to the band. I admire the band for not turning their backs on their friend. When Steve Clark is battling alcoholism, his friends are there for him as well. The film is not great but I bet it could have been better. I liked the flashbacks in the end to show the change in their appearances. They have grown older, wiser, and better for it. The road to Hysteria was marked by tragedy and triumph at once. The song "Pour Some Sugar On Me!" was a hit video on MTV. I must have seen it a hundred times or more. In the 1980s, musicians and bands like Def Leppard created lyrics with music. Today, all there is vulgarity, sexual references, obscenity, and violence in the most popular music today. Gone are the music videos that inhabited MTV all those years. It was once a music station. I saw this film on VH-1 which was also begun as an alternative to MTV. Both now dedicate themselves to reality shows and other programming. I miss MTV and the videos like Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me, Hysteria, Photograph, Love Hurts, Animal, etc. Of course, young actors who play larger than life band members do a superb job in portraying. For a minute, I believed the band was actually playing themselves. I had to see the credits. I bet they could have marketed and released this film in the theaters and they would be rocking to the sound of Def Leppard. Too bad they placed it on television as documentary. To Def Leppard, keep rocking on.

Contrary to what mtv and radio will have you believe, most 80's hard rock bands had musical ability behind the image. It is nice to see a story that pays respect to a stand out band in this genre of music.

Def Leppard has persevered through so much adversity, that there probably isn't another band who deserves a movie more. Of course there is more to their history than two hours could capture, but resolution was reached even with the events being rushed.

Solid acting made for believable portrayals and in various emotion. This is impressive as most of the actors didn't quite resemble the characters they played. This movie would be better suited for at least an R rating due to the wild parties this band is notorious for, but was handled probably as good as can be in considering tv standards.

The perks about having a non-theatrical release is that it presented a lot of new faces that most likely wouldn't get these roles because of the Hollywood bureaucracy that lately only caters to trendy actors and pop stars of the moment. It also brought back another actor in Anthony Michael Hall who played Def Leppard's producer John "Mutt" Lange.

In proving their abilities, this may be the movie that establishes these new actors as the next big wave of movie stars. Also the maturity Hall showcased in his role will hopefully gain him a widely known reputation as a versatile actor.

Overall, this movie was enjoyable and may gain cult status similar to that of This Is Spinal Tap with the exception being that instead of laughing at the band, we will be cheering for them.

For factual timelines and a deeper sense of reality, die-hard Def Leppard fans should view VH1's "Behind the Music" documentary about the band rather than this dramatization, in which the real bandmembers had no real input other than contributing their songs. That being said, "Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story" has some interesting points.

This made-for-TV film does manage to convey the hardships and triumphs of Def Leppard in a thought-provoking manner, surmounting the somewhat-less-than-accurate script with fine performances by comparatively unknown (at least in the U.S.) actors. Unfortunately, due to the many artistic liberties that were taken (in order to condense the story to a manageable viewing time and to make the content acceptable for television audiences), quite a bit of crucial information was omitted, and many of the characters received short shrift as well.

The actors' abilities to make something substantial from the two-dimensional parts they were thrust into, let alone using their performances to push this film past mediocrity, is astounding. The most blatant example of this is in Adam MacDonald's portrayal of bass player Rick Savage. MacDonald breathes as much life as possible into the character, but it's plain to see the writers had no interest in its development, evidently because the fact that Savage was one of the founding members of the band -- even before lead singer Joe Elliott --was not as screenworthy as Steve Clark's fear of his father, or Rick Allen's reckless driving. This strikes me as an insult to the real Savage as well as to MacDonald, but more importantly, it suggests that there is probably a great deal more to this story than we are allowed to witness. Whether this is by choice of the bandmembers or the producers is unknown, but the overall feel is that of Cliff's Notes -- we have enough information to pass the quiz, but no more.

See this film as a supplement to, not as a substitute for, "Behind the Music".