Killing Bono

A few years ago there was an achingly trendy 'electro rock' band called Bono Must Die. It was sued out of existence by Bono himself who clearly didn't like the idea of young, hip people swinging their pants to tunes built on Bono-hatred. Now there's a new film out called Killing Bono, yet far from troubling the normally so sensitive singer, it has received his backing. It isn't hard to see why. It's like a creation myth for U2, depicting Bono as a long-suffering saint and his band as a punkish, rebel outfit rather than the Po-faced promoters of 'world music' they really were.

The film is based on rock critic Neil McCormick's book, I Was Bono's Doppelgänger. It tells the true-ish story of Dublin-born Neil and his brother Ivan trying to make it in pop and/or rock while continually being overshadowed by their former schoolfriends Paul Hewson and Dave Evans – otherwise known as Bono and The Edge, whose band The Hype later becomes U2 and conquers the world, while Neil and Ivan scrape by in a dingy flat in London where their numerous record company rejection letters are pinned to the wall in the shape of the word 'WANKERS'.

The trouble is that in turning U2 into the barometer by which he measures and gets miserable about his own rubbishness, McCormick's book and now celluloid life story make Bono a saintly, inscrutably good, otherworldly figure. Bono (Martin McCann) floats through the movie in a Christ-like fashion, always impeccably turned out, voice calm, never saying words like 'bollox' or 'shite' as his schoolmates and the McCormicks do. He does, however, eat chips at one point, which is a kind of shocking image.

It is entirely feasible, of course, that Bono really was like this: aloof, pure, pompous. That would not come as a surprise to anyone who has seen footage of Bono performing in the Eighties, with his big hair, high heels, and breathy, strangely American-accented mini-speeches about uprisings in Soweto (good) or uprisings in Northern Ireland (bad). Yet in investing Bono with an ethereal quality, in making him the yin to McCormick's yang, the movie comes across less like a rock biopic than as a conservative morality tale stuffed with righteous seers and wayward scallywags. Bono effectively saves the McCormick brothers, with a speech in the back of a limousine about brotherly love, in a not dissimilar fashion to the way Christ rescued James and John from a life of fishery.

The mythologising extends to the way U2's music is presented. They're depicted as the heirs to punk, bashing out Iggy Pop songs in a garage before going on to conquer and colonise a bland pop landscape with heartfelt music. In truth, far from being the punks of the Eighties, U2 were the equivalent of those Seventies Po-faced prog rock bands that punk eventually swept aside. U2's own comeuppance came towards the end of the Eighties when, after a decade of thrilling ageing rock critics and Americans but boring the rest of us rigid with their sweeping and serious guitar songs, they were elbowed aside by the rebirth of pop hedonism: rave, acid, baggy, whose adherents didn't go to gigs to learn about Nelson Mandela but to get smashed.

U2's out-of-touchness was brilliantly illustrated by their release in 1988 of the film and album Rattle and Hum, their most worthy dose of blackish, bluesy, Elvisy Americana to date, at a time when the kidz were knocking back Es and dancing like mental patients. 'Bombastic and misguided', said one critic of Rattle and Hum. 'Pretentious', said the rest. And of course U2 only made things worse when they tried to recover by releasing the electronic dance-inspired Achtung, Baby! in 1991. It was as if Jethro Tull had tried to play 'Pretty Vacant'. Just as the punks cheered upon hearing of the death of the fat, bloated Elvis in 1977, so some young 'electro rockers' today wish for the death of Bono.

It really is only a handful of serious rock critics who still treat U2 seriously, fantasising that they are 'real' where most others are fake. As a result, Killing Bono, the life and times of a rock critic in the making, ends up being deeply conservative. Part On The Buses, part Rattle and Hum, it combines slapstick humour with Bono sanctification to tell a pretty warped story about both U2 and the Eighties.

I can see how some people may get annoyed at the protagonist of this story. "Killing Bono" is the story of a chronic loser, and from the outset, he makes every bad choice possible, repeats his bad choices, blows just about every golden opportunity to redeem himself. And all the while he cockily convinces himself that he is the last great idealist on the planet. Who would want to sit through 2 hours of this??

Answer: YOU.

Maybe it's Ben Barnes' charming portrayal of the loser (a bit like John Ritter's charming loser character Jack Tripper on "Three's Company"), maybe it's the wonderfully acidic script, maybe it's the parade of lovably bizarre characters, or maybe it's the suspense of wanting to know if he actually does kill Bono, as the title & opening flash-forward scene tease us. Whatever it is, something about this film will keep you interested & entertained until the very second the end credits roll.

Loosely, very loosely based on the memoirs of Bono's 70s school chum and rival rockstar Neil McCormick, this film depicts some true events such as the anemic rise of Neil's 80s pop band "Shook Up!" (they weren't half bad, check out their videos on youtube) and some not-so-true events that really spice things up in the third act. But since this is a comedy, the fictionalizations are strangely believable if not central to the point of the movie.

"This is not a true story. It is crucial to say that," says director Nick Hamm in the DVD bonus featurette. "You can be real to the story you're telling, but your story doesn't have to be real."

The real Neil McCormick, when asked about the fictional aspects, sheepishly approved: "We all fictionalise ourselves ... I created a version of myself to suit my book ... Now, someone has created an alternative version. As a deluded, fame-obsessed young man, of course, I never doubted that one day someone would make a film of my life. It just never occurred to me it would be a comedy."

That it is. A brilliant & entertaining comedy with a compelling theme driving it. Not many comedies have been able to portray the story of a loser in a fun, vibrant way. But if you're familiar with the obscure gems "Buffalo 66", the documentary "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" or the Aussie rocker "Garage Days", you'll have an idea of the treat you have in store here.

A final note about the music: I think it features only one U2 song ("Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"), but there are some atmospheric bits that sound hauntingly like U2. There's one song by Neil's band Shook Up! entitled "Stop the World", and most of the other songs seem to be new compositions (or new versions) that actually feature Ben Barnes singing. U2 fans may be disappointed because this is not a movie about U2, although it revolves closely around them. In that respect it's a lot like another great comedy "Grand Theft Parsons" about famed singer Gram Parsons' good friend who decides to steal Gram's body after his death.

"Killing Bono" is a creatively-told fiction that flirts with truth but ultimately takes us in the opposite direction. Hey, this formula worked in "Amadeus" (Mozart), "Immortal Beloved" (Beethoven) and "Impromptu" (Chopin). Sure, why not Bono?

I really wanted to like this film, I really did, but in reality it was simply mediocre. However, it is worth saying that I went into this film not knowing anything about it, and most of the criticisms I formed whilst watching it were made before I found-out that the whole thing was actually based on a true story , which somehow absolves the film of a lot of its sins: The plot was long and meandering, yet bore an uncanny resemblance to the film "Rock Star" (Mark Wahlberg at his finest...?). The acting was questionable bar a great performance from Pete Postlethwaite as the lovable gay landlord. It really bothered me that the band's music (the McCormick Brothers +Shook-up) was actually really good up until their point of stardom when suddenly their musical style was transformed into something that sounded about as 80s as Fall Out Boy... I don't know how much of the soundtrack were original songs written by the band, but I'd be shocked if I found out that the song "Where we want to be" (for example) was an eighties classic. However, there are some criticisms that cannot be excused by the story's supposed authenticity and origins in fact... For example, the film didn't seem to know what it was, too funny to be taken seriously, too dramatic to be a comedy. Therefore many of the jokes were wasted. Despite my aspersions, it has to be said that the casting for the character of "Bono" was impeccable and that added dramatically to the quality of the film- grounding it in reality. Overall, I would say - Questionable acting - Brilliant Casting - A bit on the long side

... given that I went watching it without reading a book, seeing trailer, heard which actors are involved or anything else about it.

In case you don't know what is it about, let me repost the plot: "Two brothers attempt to become global rock stars but can only look on as old school friends U2 become the biggest band in the world."

Story is the best part of this movie. Throughout it's entire length I was wondering which way will it go. Will it keep it's mild comedy tone from start to the end, or will it turn to tragedy, given the main character's auto-destructive nature ... or maybe, could it even have some alternative history ending like in "Inglorious Bastards" ? Well, it could have gone either way, and because I don't wanna spoil anything for you, I'll just say I'm most satisfied how it finished.

Also, I have nothing but praises for the cast. Ben Barnes... I'm surprised you still aren't big thing in Hollywood. Weekest link might only be his on-screen brother, the guy with curly hair, but he's not bad enough to ruin the movie ... go watch !

I think the story this movie tells actually had some legs on it. It was interesting, there was depth and insight in it, but the director chose exactly the wrong tone for telling it and the result is an addition to the list of failures associated with the central figure. The tone is a mediocre wanting-to-please-everyone Grange Hill TV vibe with none of the serious themes coming through well because everything is played for light, obvious, almost slapstick laughs; it's delivery so rooted in dated TV stylings that you wonder what the production team were thinking. Sure the story is from the 80's but cinema has grown leaps and bounds since then. Look to the documentary Anvil for how something like this could better be handled. Some of the cast were well chosen but their delivery was well off, in keeping with the bad choice of feel. I wish this film was better, and another production team may well milk it for the good it has in its story, if it gets another shot at its 15 mins of fame. On a side note original videos of the real band shook up show them to be something quite terrible, so that kind of ruins everything.