A legend in Rock and Roll, the biography about Jimi Hendrix called Jimi: All is by my Side is now on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD. The film focus on his early rise to fame and moves along at a fast tempo till the amazing musically explosive finale. He carved out a name for himself in the midst of Britain’s top rock stars including Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones and The Animals. If your music involves the love of rock, blues, jazz and soul, this film delivers the man with the red hot guitar.
The biography starts with Jimi Hendrix (Andre Benjamin) playing in a discotheque called The Cheetah Club in New York City. Already out of touch with his former life as a combat soldier, he’s playing with a band as second guitar. On one fateful night Linda Keith (Imogen Poots), girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitar legend Keith Richards, watches Hendrix in disbelief as he performs a guitar solo like nothing she’s seen before. Following the set she invites Hendrix to a party with some friends. They strike up a conversation after offering him a sugar cube of LSD and she tells Hendrix he could be a big star with the right management. She introduces him to Chas Chandler (Andrew Buckley) and ship him off to England where we see the struggle, his slow rise to acceptance by fellow artists, a love tryst with society girl Kathy Etchingham (Hayley Atwell), and his change from meek guitarist to raging star.
The film just involves the period of 1966 until 1967 just before Hendrix returns to the United States for the Monterey Pop Festival that featured Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar and The Mamas & the Papas. Director John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) wrote the memoir for the screen based on true incidents. He takes you into the two years that gave him the exposure that made Hendrix a star. Showing all the incidents that gave the musician notoriety, resistance to England’s discrimination and finally a chance to show his amazing talent before a room spiced with the likes of members of the Beetles, The Who, The Rolling Stones and The Animals.
Taking on the awesome task of bringing Hendrix to life, Andre Benjamin gives a terrific performance. Even without costumes and special camera work during his stage appearances, Benjamin looks like Hendrix. Yet on stage he becomes Hendrix even more singing his songs while mimicking his guitar playing. Benjamin shows the passion, reverence, confidence and determination of the great musician that took the rock world by storm during the most important period of his life. A singer, Benjamin provides the vocals for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “Wild Thing”, “My Heart’s Bleeden’”, and “Hard Day” in the film.
The film only covers two years of Hendrix life and shows a lot of what I didn’t know about him during that period of his career. It’s interesting that Academy Award Winning Director John Ridley would take on the challenge of this strong figure in music history. Although he touches briefly on Hendrix life of drugs and drinking while in England, he doesn’t persist on that being the cause of his early death in 1970. His film ends up being a nearly pristine homage to the great guitarist and left me wanting more.
A bonus feature “Music by Waddy, Lyrics by Danny” features Waddy Wachtel the guitarist that did all Hendrix’s music track for the film. He along with producer Danny Bramson talk about Waddy’s special guitar. It’s a nice companion piece to the film.
Jimi: All is by my Side has been R for language including sexual references, and some drug content. It also contains a scene of disturbing brutality and some smoking.
Specifications and additional video information:
Cast: Andre Benjamin, Hayley Atwell, Imogen Poots, Andrew Buckley and Ruth Negga
Director: John Ridley
MPAA Rating: R for language including sexual references, and some drug content
Genre: Biography, Music, Drama
Running Time: 1 hr 58 min
Video Release Date: January 13, 2015
Original Film Release Date: September 26, 2014
Language: English
Format: DVD
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Subtitles: None
Number of Discs: 1 Disc
Distributed by: XLERATOR Media
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
