Billy Idol Should Be Dead review – nostalgic docu-tribute to British postpunk’s rebel

2026-03-25 - 13:40

The self-destructive bad boy, now 70, looks back on his life with a humorous shrug in Jonas Åkerlund’s warmly sympathetic film Swedish film-maker Jonas Åkerlund has been attracted to the wilder edge of rock’n’roll and I found myself grudgingly admiring his gruesome true-life death-metal horror thriller Lords of Chaos. So he was probably the right choice to direct this lavish docu-tribute to British postpunk legend Billy Idol, which combines a kind of humorous shrug at his outrageous excesses with something warmly sympathetic. With that certain type of luck indistinguishable from talent, Billy Idol rode the tide of punk to new wave in the late 70s and early 80s, and then gambled on a move to the US; there he found fledgling 24-hour music video channel MTV, avid for content and always turned on by a self-destructive bad boy, which made him a big name. The film compares Idol to Elvis Presley, but there is something in that reflexive snarl-sneer that he used to do that has something of Eddie Cochran. Continue reading...