He Cant Get No Satisfaction (from This Is Local London)

Shine a light (12A)
Film of the week
Star rating: ***
Dir: Martin Scorsese

There are more rock stars in Martin Scorsese's film of the Rolling Stones in concert than you can shake a groupie at. There's Marty himself, not officially a rock star but the nearest Hollywood comes to one. Former president Bill Clinton, possessor of a rock-star reputation, shows up to say hi, while Jack White and Christina Aguilera are on guest vocals. Finally, give it up for their satanic majesties and bus-pass merchants themselves as they play before the cameras - again.

At a rough count, Scorsese's film is the 19th documentary to feature the band, putting the Stones up there with love and war as cinematic subject matter. Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Whitehead, the Maysles brothers, Hal Ashby - all have tried to capture their essence. Now it's Scorsese's turn to fail. While he turns in a highly polished product, there's nothing here to shake the nerves or rattle the brain as a great concert movie should.

The Mean Streets director had a tough act to follow - himself. In 1978's The Last Waltz, the farewell concert of The Band featuring such support acts as Dylan and Clapton, he created the gold standard for the genre. Though concert movie directors after him would try to get away with merely pointing a camera at the stage, Scorsese showed what a genuine appreciation for mood and music could achieve.

For Shine a Light, as in The Last Waltz, Scorsese hired a team of Oscar-winning cinematographers to man the cameras. If you didn't know that going in, the opening segment, shot in moody black and white, makes it plain there are some serious lens artists at work here. Not that Charlie Watts is impressed. The lights are too bright, says the gentleman drummer, and there are concerns Jagger might burst into flames, Icarus-like, if he flutters too close. We're meant to believe there's a creative tension burning between band and director, but the atmosphere is really one of extreme cosiness. The band, after all, are executive producers of the movie. The director is an obvious fan: to a certain generation, Gimme Shelter, used in Goodfellas and The Departed, is more associated with Scorsese than the Stones.

When we meet this happy, if dysfunctional, family, older brother Mick is taking great delight in keeping the running order secret from fussy dad Marty. Scorsese, speaking faster than a yellow cab running a red light, looks frantic. Twenty minutes in, as the film switches from mono to colour and the opening bars of Jumpin' Jack Flash ring out, it seems everything is going to be all right on the night after all (as if there was any chance it would be otherwise). New York's Beacon Theatre, where the film was shot over two nights, is tiny compared to the stadiums the band usually plays. While this generates a sense of intimacy between band and audience, it's not one that spreads to the cheap seats in the cinema. That invisible barrier between screen and cinemagoer is never more obvious than when you are watching a concert movie, where everything is there to be seen but not experienced.

There are some things you don't wish to gaze upon too closely. The sweat stains under Jagger's arms, for one. Keith Richards in close-up is another. When, exactly, did Keef become Grandpa Simpson? As Scorsese cuts from the performance to interviews with the band in their younger days one recalls, with a certain shock, how beautiful Richards once was. While Jagger can hardly be accused of keeping a portrait in the attic, he moves so fast there's hardly time to notice time's toll. Careering across the stage like an orang-utan on a hot tin roof, he's pure energy, the wild man of rock once more.

Scorsese comes closer than anyone to capturing Jagger's mojo, but he hasn't managed to do the same for the Stones as a whole. This lot have been together for so long they're more like a lost tribe than a band. No matter how many cameras are pointed at them - in this case 18 - their defences are not that easily penetrated. At two hours, Shine a Light also requires Jagger-like powers of endurance to get through. The guest stars afford some relief, with Aguilera coming off better than White, but neither can hold a plectrum to Buddy Guy during a rendition of Champagne and Reefer.

A few choice moments aside, Scorsese's movie is content to stick within the well-worn boundaries of the concert movie. He even gives us shots of the band putting on robes as they quit the stage. There is one final, inspired piece of direction, though: as the camera bursts out of the stage door he commands it to go "Up, up!" into the skies above a shimmering Manhattan. All of New York is under his thumb. The Stones, meanwhile, roll on to the next gig, and doubtless another film bidding to be the last word on rock's ultimate survivors.

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