After The Beatles, Paul McCartney Scrambled To Get Wings Soaring

What do you do after you’ve done it all? Man on the Run documents what happened when the most acclaimed creator on the planet was forced to answer that question for himself.

Man on the Run tells Paul McCartney’s story from the end and the beginning simultaneously — the breakup of The Beatles and the start of his individual journey. Beginning as it does with the unseemly imbroglio around the former, it would make a great double feature with Peter Jackson’s late-phase Beatles doc Get Back, for those who have an entire day to kill.

Man on the Run ★★★★ (4/5 stars)
Directed by: Morgan Neville
Running time: 115 mins

Morgan Neville’s film offers plenty of inside glimpses of McCartney’s post-Beatles reality. We see and nearly smell the rundown sheep farm deep in the Scottish wilderness that became Paul and new wife Linda’s sanctuary when the couple went full Green Acres. There’s a revealing view of the shockingly humble (especially by today’s standards) home studio setup Paul employed for the declaration of independence that was his 1970 solo debut, McCartney.

After he finally reaches out to former Moody Blues frontman Denny Laine to form the core of Wings with Linda and himself, we’re treated to some succulent home videos of the band’s early rehearsals. But one of the doc’s most edifying aspects is the inside-the-fishbowl POV it provides. Through period newscasts, headlines, and tear-soaked B-roll of forlorn fans, Man on the Run allows us to see and feel the kind of pressure Paul was under from the moment the split became public.

How would you like to be held responsible for not only the breakup of the world’s most beloved band ever, but the crash and burn of the 1960s’ entire Aquarian dream, and then have to find a way to move on?

As the movie — not to mention the title itself — makes clear, Paul’s transition from one wildly successful group to the next was less an easy amble and more a hardscrabble scramble. McCartney had to navigate his former bandmates’ resentment (personified here by a raw clip of John Lennon cutting his notorious anti-Paul screed “How Do You Sleep?”), a labyrinth of legal difficulties, and his own dark forest of emotions.

In retrospect it may seem tough to believe, but somehow the 1970-71 period that produced such tunes as “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Every Night,” “Too Many People,” “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” and “Heart of the Country” on Paul’s brace of post-Beatles/pre-Wings solo LPs was initially deemed a letdown by many of the Fab Four faithful.

Further highlighting McCartney’s crooked path to success with Wings, Man on the Run reminds us that Paul’s determined idiosyncrasies didn’t always ease his entry to post-Beatles acceptance. Scenes like the pub singalong with Paul’s entire extended family from his eccentric 1973 U.K. television variety special James Paul McCartney help fill that function. So does a segment about Paul’s polarizing cover of a certain famous sheep-centered nursery rhyme, memorably punctuated by early Wings tour-opener Nick Lowe’s retrospective comment, “‘Mary Had a Little fucking Lamb?!’ Are you nuts?”

Even after Wings won the world’s heart with No. 1 albums and a heap of Top 10 singles, Paul never stopped getting grief for making his wife and musical newbie Linda Wings’ co-founding keyboardist and harmony singer.

The film further observes that even during the run-up to what would turn out to be Wings’ multi-Platinum breakout album Band on the Run, things were looking rough. The rhythm section quit right before the band set out for a studio in Nigeria to make the album. Then, once they were in situ in Lagos, Paul and Linda were mugged at knifepoint during an ill-advised nocturnal stroll.

Fans of the album will be tickled by some fun behind-the-scenes footage from the all-star Band on the Run cover shoot, which featured film and TV celebs like James Coburn, Christopher Lee, and British talk show host Michael Parkinson done up alongside Laine and the McCartneys as an outlaw gang.

The mid-’70s were victory-lap time for Wings, with blockbuster hits like “Jet,” “Band on the Run,” “Let Me Roll It,” and “Listen to What the Man Said,” along with the triumphant Wings Over America tour in 1976. Watching commanding in-concert sequences of the band at its peak, we’re tempted to wonder what it might have been like if The Beatles had lasted long enough to mount a tour of ’70s-style arena-rock dimensions. At the same time, a scene of the band showing up at the wrong airport mid-tour reminds us it wasn’t all glamour and glory.

There are plenty of moments throughout the film sure to snare the attention of both hardcore fans and casual onlookers, whether it’s the strange sight of a Shetland pony hanging out amid all the gear during the Speed of Sound sessions or the sound of “Silly Love Songs” coming together in the studio. One of Neville’s best moves is to let the legendary and the loose-goosey live alongside each other without forcing the audience to decide what matters most.

Like its literary companion piece, the 2025 oral history Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, the film revolves around executive producer Paul’s own commentary. As in the book, he never comes across as less than candid, no matter how close to home things get. With mountains of film devoted to documenting The Beatles’ every eyeblink but precious little on Macca’s next band, an account of Wings’ soaring seasons is a welcome sight.