Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story

I truly enjoyed Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story. It showed how the young lads from the depressing industrial city of Shefield England rose to the top of the heavy metal world. Alot of the movie deals with Rick Allen, the groups drummer, overcoming his infamous car crash where he loses his left arm and has to learn a new style of playing drums. Steve Clark was shown as a charismatic, yet insecure lead guitar player, who faces the demons of alcoholism, stage fright, and an overly-critcal father. Joe Elliott was portrayed as the driving force behind the group, a powerful lead singer who would be willing to "cut his gonads off to get out of Shefield." I wish the story would have concentrated a little more about Rick Savage, the groups bass player. After watching the movie, I still knew very little about him. Phil Collen,as a replacement guitarist for the ousted original founder of the band, Pete Willis, was a superb guitar player and had a great sense of humor. Phil and Steve were good together as the "Terror Twins" who partied hardy every night, until Phil decided to quit drinking. "What if I black-out and end up like Rick?

I enjoyed the songs and soundtrack of the movie. I thought the story was well done, considering that it was only a 90 minute TV movie. I know the movie wasn't perfect, yet I thought it was interesting and very powerful!

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.

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.

It's nothing new or special if you have seen the Def Lepperd 'Behind the Music' episode, and I found some of the stuff-lip synching, concert set, etc-to be iffy-but otherwise, it's fine. The casting, acting, etc is good. The guys do look like Def Lepperd pretty much. You are hard pressed to get the bass player more than a cameo appearence, and that's not fair, he's been there since day one; and yeah predictably enough the drummer and doomed guitar player Clark are the ones the script centers in on. It's cliched stuff too.

But-the music is good, the band was good and important in their day, for a TV flick of the week it's alright. Beats the heck outta any 'Black Flag' or 'Ramones' bio either-it's about a group that actually sold records, filled up stadiums and had hits.

** outta ****