Review: Ozzy, for a new generation
The interviews are honest and frank, with Ozzy and his immediate family
Produced by his son, Jack Osbourne, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne is a personal take on one of the craziest musicians of his generation. Directors Mike Fleiss and Mike Piscitelli follow an ageing and health-conscious Ozzy on the road for two years gathering personal interviews, backstage insights and photographic evidence of the life and tribulations of the unconventional prodigy.
The documentary follows him from his modest beginnings growing up in a working class family in Birmingham, to his sudden launch into fame as the frontman of one of the biggest heavy metal bands of the Seventies, Black Sabbath. With poignant honesty it details his plummet into alcohol and drugs and then his resurrection recreating himself as a solo artist, which earned him more success than his Black Sabbath days.
His rock star status and music precedes him, but it his insecurity and self-consciousness as a teenager rocketed into fame that makes the story an interesting one. Through a series of funny and shocking anecdotes we relive his drug-fuelled highs and extreme lows from the initial buzz of his first pay cheque to trying to kill his wife and manager, Sharon, in a drunken frenzy, to his mature years of sobriety.
In between the candid interviews with a much calmer, weathered, beaten Ozzy we get to know the people closest to him: his family, bandmates and fellow music legends. The interviews are honest and frank, with Ozzy and his immediate family not shying away from relating in detail his horrific downfalls and attempt to redeem himself.
His Black Sabbath bandmates, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, and his contemporaries Paul McCartney and Tommy Lee from Motley Crew are on hand to provide insights into his talent, comic value and degradation.
I went into the movie with an open mind, ready to learn about "The Godfather of Heavy Metal", whose rock star heyday spanned the two decades before I was born. My checkered knowledge of the legend consisted of scrappings from the tabloids detailing his antics on his reality TV show and the tail-end of a four decade career in music, but the frank and honest portrayal of the man behind the music provided me some rare insights into an era of rock I previously knew little about and a legend that revolutionised the scene.
