Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

jc-osms Like the early Beatles bio-pic "Backbeat" this depiction of Jimi Hendrix's breakthrough years of 1966-1967 suffers from not playing any of his most recognisable songs during the period. It really is unthinkable that in trying to explore his complex character, the producers would ignore tracks like "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze" or "The Wind Cries Mary" to name but three. I don't know if it was they couldn't get licensing permission or whether it was deliberate, but for me it left a gaping hole in the finished movie.What we're left with then is in truth a rather flat, dreary movie which despite employing several cinematic tricks and devices, in the end comes out dull and boring, two things Hendrix assuredly wasn't. Among those devices is the name-plating of important people when they're on screen, even if only for fleeting seconds, just because they don't look sufficiently like their real-life counterparts (like Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and for one second George Harrison). Otherwise numerous jump-cuts, hand-held shots and unusual camera angles are deployed throughout no doubt to psychedelicise proceedings and get the viewer synced with swinging London in 1966-1967.Hendrix is depicted in three distinct guises, the sex-god who casually flits from woman to woman as they uniformly fall for his hippy-drippy, far-out exoticism, staying with him even after he hits them, the peace-nik dreamer who we see set out his flower-power credentials in a lengthy heavy discussion with black activist Michael X and lastly of course the shy musician, reverent of his blues history and modern contemporaries like Clapton and Dylan, who can drop in on a Cream gig and blow away Slowhand Clapton or dazzle the attendant Beatles at a Savile Row gig by playing the title track to their landmark "Sgt Pepper" album just two days after its release.I actually liked the acting in the film, Andre Benjamin of OutKast certainly nails Jimi's appearance, mannerisms, speech patterns and even his guitar playing style, the various women who pass in and out of his life are well played and similarly the actors playing his manager ex-Animal Chas Chandler and the Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding are convincing.Somehow though this movie, whilst reasonably accurate in depicting the era failed to really leap off the screen and grab my attention with dialogue scenes running on too long and one senses really only touching the surface of the complex character that was James Marshall Hendrix.

peterjamesholmes The only redeeming feature is Andre Benjamin's performance as Jimi.Plenty of other people have already listed the problems with this film but for me the main ones are: 1. the many inaccuracies in the story. I know it is not a documentary but the massively increased role for Linda Keith, the inclusion of the imaginary Ida and the vicious assaults on Kathy are all too much 2. the film never seems to be about Jimi so much as these three women's version of him 3. the police and Michael X scenes are crowbarred into the film to make facile political points 4. the music is a joke.

bryan415 most of the happenings in this film seem to make Jimi out to be a crazed drug addict when in reality he was not. Jimi above all else was an artist and a fashion icon. Kathy Etchingham swears that Jimi never hit her, yet there is a scene in the film that shows jimi beat the crap out of her with a phone.... what the hell are they trying to do to the legend's image? Are they trying to discredit the incredible body of music he created? I don't know, but I've read the memoirs of many who knew Jimi deeply and none of them describe the character that I saw in this film. Period.

moonspinner55 Failed musical-bio on the career of American rock and blues musician Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970), whose life spiraled out of control at the age of 27, leading to his accidental death from an overdose of barbiturates. André Benjamin was a very fine choice for the leading role: he has the charisma and stage presence needed to play Hendrix, plus his dramatic acting is also good (he broods prettily). Unfortunately, writer-co-producer-director John Riley was unable to get the necessary musical assistance from the artist's estate and, without Hendrix's original music in the film, a hole is left in the finished product. Ridley perhaps panicked, using a messy editing technique to substitute for a narrative. The many chapter stops and starts strand the movie in a kind of 'artistic' past-or-present netherworld. The whole thing would feel like a horrible sham were it not for Benjamin's performance. He rated a better movie--and Hendrix's fans deserved one. *1/2 from ****