Beastie Boys Story (2020)

Full disclosure: I’ve been a Beastie Boys fan all my life. For a long time they were my favorite band. I’ve seen them live multiple times and listen to their stuff as much now as I did back then. So yeah, I was pumped for this.

Pumped and completely biased, as I believe all critics and journalists should be. Oh, you don’t like your human journalists to have opinions and biases that trickle into their work? That’s too bad, go get your news from a ferret then.

Back to the movie. It’s an absolute thrill listening to Mike and Adam regale a live audience, and us viewers by extension, with stories from their youth; casually name dropping dope ass punk bands they saw in their early teens like Bad Brains, Misfits, and Circle Jerks. Why didn’t I get to grow up in New York City mom? WHY?!?!

The documentary plays in real time, and was filmed on the last night of their Broadway show. Mike and Adam talk to the audience and then Spike Jonze rolls video clips. Did you know Beastie Boys opened for Madonna on her very first tour? Neither did I. There’s some mind blowing stuff in this thing.

They were just some dumb kids who stumbled into fame and went with it. They made mistakes along the way and learned from them. It's a fun two hour ride. I had a smile on my face the whole time. If you are a fan of the B-Boys, you will too.

Rating: B