Is the New Billy Idol Doc a Cautionary Tale or Rock Star 101?

Was rock stardom all it was cracked up to be in the era that was arguably America’s last great gasp of hedonism?

The very title of rock doc Billy Idol Should Be Dead tips its hand somewhat on the answer to that question, while still leaving some room for debate. Along the way, it lets us in on the life of a singular sort of figure in pop culture. Though the Billy Idol persona is that of an archetypal rock ‘n’ roll bad boy, Idol was also the only key figure from the first-gen ’70s Britpunk scene to become a full-blown mainstream sensation in ’80s America. The film, which hits theaters nationwide on March 2, makes clear that neither that transatlantic evolution nor its aftermath entailed anything approaching smooth sailing.

Director Jonas Åkerlund seems uniquely suited to tell Idol’s tale. In addition to a CV full of music videos, concert films, and documentaries focusing on larger-than-life figures like Paul McCartney, Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne, and Metallica, he’s got some firsthand experience with rock transgression as the original drummer for influential Swedish black metal band Bathory.

Billy Idol Should Be Dead ★★★1/2 (3.5/5 stars)
Directed by: Jonas Åkerlund
Running time: 125 minutes

The film bounces back and forth in time a bit, but it ultimately covers each key phase of our antihero’s journey. We get a good bit of the grit and grime surrounding the young William Broad’s transformation into Billy Idol — banging around with a showy gang of punk scenesters including Siouxsie Sioux and Sid Vicious, briefly joining early punk outfit Chelsea, and defecting with bassist Tony James to form Generation X, where Idol got his first taste of fame.

The stateside popularity of Generation X’s New Wave anthem “Dancing with Myself” in 1981 gave Idol a foothold in the U.S. music business just as his band was unraveling. By the end of that year, he was living in New York City and starting up a solo career, with KISS manager Bill Aucoin as his overseer. Just as Aucoin helped sell America on four guys in sci-fi garb and kabuki makeup, he aided the photogenic Idol in establishing an image somewhere between an enfant terrible superhero and a comic book vision of a rock star.

Keying in on that aspect of Idol’s image, Åkerlund intersperses period footage and present-day interviews with both literally and figuratively dark, sleekly stylized animation sequences that feel like they could work within any modern-day anime feature. Since some of Idol’s exploits are pretty far out there, the effect is complementary and surprisingly effective at expanding the director’s storytelling toolkit.

The meat of the movie concerns Idol’s rise to riches and his very nearly fatal — hence the title — ride on the rock-celeb rocket ship. Anyone who lived through or ever had an interest in the ’80s knows the basics: punky biker look, Elvis Presley–worthy sneer, and indelible hits like “Rebel Yell,” “White Wedding,” “Eyes Without a Face,” “To Be a Lover,” et al. But besides being a magnet for money, fame, and groupies, Idol attracted trouble like a velvet-lined cat carrier collects fur.

The film documents one lurid tale of drug-related depravity after another, along with brushes with death — including the motorcycle crash that nearly cost Idol his leg, very on brand. The doc doesn’t glorify these episodes, but neither does it sidestep them. Modern-day Idol is completely candid about his darkest times, and these are some of the sections where the animated sequences do heavy lifting. If anything, the anecdote about Idol’s leg injury could have used even more animation, as the footage of the actual injury isn’t for the faint of heart.

Eventually, one comes away regarding Billy Idol as one of the luckiest bastards alive for having survived all his excesses of the ’80s and ’90s. Present-day footage of Idol with his kids and grandkids is predictably heart-tugging, but the most touching moments are the recent ones where he is interviewed alongside his parents, whose influence — and in some cases intervention — affected every stage of his life.

Billy Idol Should Be Dead is more an account of our main man making his way through the world in ways that sometimes beggar belief than it is an analysis of his music. For such an outsized figure in pop culture, that’s fair enough.

Still, it’s hard not to wish there were more time and attention offered to Idol’s longtime right-hand man, guitar hero Steve Stevens, and less devoted to dredging up the remains of Idol’s disastrous 1993 album Cyberpunk. For inexplicable reasons, an unconscionable amount of space is devoted to a ludicrous attempt at retconning Idol’s flop techno/sci-fi concept album as some sort of lost classic that was simply too far ahead of its time, rather than a couple of decent tracks buried amid howlingly pretentious dystopian tomfoolery.

That aside, when the doc sinks its teeth into the truly important stuff — which is most of the film — it spends the time necessary to make this more than just an update on the Behind the Music episode VH1 dedicated to Idol’s career a quarter of a century ago.

Time has been kind to Idol’s best work and sorted out a few things about his legacy. So whether you end up wanting to walk in his path or keep a football field’s distance from it, this account arrives at the right time.