AllMovie

Having a movie soundtrack to go along with the music of beloved bands is a superb concept and with a group as accessible and fun as The Chesterfield Kings such a film should be easy to make. Just string a bunch of performances together like an episode of The Monkees and add any type of silly storyline to connect that music together. Alas, what our heroes do with this video adventure is exactly the opposite, they put great music next to a script which rivals Plan 9 from Outer Space, and add some strained Three Stooges madness that falls flat. Watching it is...painful...even when Mark Lindsay makes a guest appearance. The grainy texture to the DVD is actually quite appealing, and all the elements for an underground smash are in this bow, it is just that the arrow misses the mark. The original 2001 Motion Picture release comes with extras that are so cool you will find yourself watching them instead of the flick. Those extras include a manic and psychedelic low-fi couple of 1997 performances from The El Sol Club in Madrid, Spain, "Rock n' Roll Murder" from the Bilbo Club in Spain that same year with the boys sounding like The Gizmos on bad acid, while the 1999 "Freak Out" from Rochester New York is definitely your Saturday night fly-on-the-wall camera having convulsions. There's a great music video of "Where Do We Go From Here" featuring Mark Lindsay, thirteen minutes of footage from the world premiere of the feature film held on September 30, 2000, and a trailer to the movie -- which is all the fun stuff Chesterfield Kings fans are really looking for. The promo says "It's Ed Wood meets A Hard Days Night and, sadly, it leans more towards the Ed Wood end of the spectrum. The songs sprinkled throughout the movie have that Flamin' Groovies sound which is one of their key selling points, and that is where the group truly shines. If only they had more performances and shorter vignettes, but that's OK, Where Is The Chesterfield King?!?! gets a B+ for effort and let's hope Greg Prevost and the boys try it again...only this time with a real script.