"PEOPLE, KEEP ON LEARNIN"
Members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers talk about the beginnings and origins of the band and their beloved guitar player who died tragically nearly 40 years ago, right before they made it really big. So basically we have a vehicle here that doesn't drown in total self-conceit. "We were a trio of best friends in high school." You don't say Flea. You don't say.
So OK, I think The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother Hillel is one of the best documentaries I've seen in the last five years. I mean it doesn't bend to normal tropes, taking one portion of the Chili Peppers Behind the Music chunk and stretching it out to a never-dull 93 minutes. Rock on brothers! Yeah VH1 is fun to watch but the early 2000s were dated as all get-out. "Our Brother Hillel" is more modern-day in terms of its polish and cinematic professionalism. "It was red-hot." Uh, hint hint.
Directed by Ben Feldman (a near rookie), projecting the usual archives and animation, distributed by Netflix (naturally), and showing raw concert footage that would give you some serious whiplash (yikes!), The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother Hillel is an unflinching and fervent docu, not necessarily praising the Peppers boys but paying tribute to their fallen, influential axeman Hillel Slovak who perished from a heroin overdose circa 1988 (see first paragraph).
Singer Anthony Kiedis, Hillel's bro (James Slovak), and bassist Flea (whose real name is Michael Balzary), well they wax on profusely about Slovak, spewing profanities, being vulnerable, and shedding non-crocodile tears. I mean "Our Brother Hillel" is massively without filter, and it's quite refreshing witnessing this on screen as opposed to a flick about rock heroes where everyone but them is being interviewed to um, anatomize. Give "rise" to.
Written by Jesse Burleson
