When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, there lived nearby a family with which my sister was friends with their young daughter.  They remain so to this day despite the years and miles between them.  That same family’s son and eldest child was what I associated with the music of Mötley Crüe, the band featured in today’s film, The Dirt (2019).  He had long hair, wore leather jackets, and engaged in a number of activities not considered appropriate for a minor.  As we shall see in the synopsis, this is exactly the kind of behavior the group encouraged.  I have not been the completely square Catholic that I try to be today, but their antics, including the music, left a negative impression on me.  God calls all of us to a higher purpose, and even if I did not always follow His path as He would like, I tend to feel that my life is evidence of the fact that He does not give up on us.  For some, the message is drowned out by a variety of factors that lead to an alternative lifestyle, to put it as mildly as possible.  I present to you the following as a warning as to what that alternative can bring.

All of the members Mötley Crüe have a part in sharing with us the events in The Dirt, though it is primarily told through the eyes of base player Nikki Sixx (Douglas Booth).  Remember those “variety of factors” I mentioned in the last paragraph?  Born Frank Feranna Jr., his involves being left by his father (not pictured) as a child, and having a mother, Deana Richards (Kathryn Morris), bringing home a string of abusive stepfathers.  Her alcoholism does not help matters. After a large argument involving Deana blaming a fourteen-year-old Frank (Vince Robert Mattis) for his dad going away, Frank runs away to live on the streets of Los Angeles.  Frank tries to call Frank Sr., but is brutally rebuffed.  Frank then promptly applies to have his name legally changed to Nikki Sixx and embarks on his music career.  The next bandmate we meet is Tommy Lee (Colson Baker).  Unlike Nikki, he has a happy home life, but an obsession with the underground rock n’ roll scene in Los Angeles.  This is how he meets Nikki, coming to the base player’s booth at a diner after a show Nikki performs with another band.  Nikki believes his current roster of players are no good and the eager Tommy gives Nikki the motivation to start a new group.  Their subsequent auditions lead to our next introduction, that being the lead guitar player, Mick Mars (Iwan Rheon).  Mick is a little older than the rest, and suffers from a degenerative disease called Ankylosing spondylitis.  It is similar to arthritis, affecting mainly the spine, slowly fusing all the bones together.  It is also only part of the reason for his grumpiness, the other being that he has played with a number of people and desires to find the right musicians.  The final person is a high school friend of Tommy’s, Vince Neil (Daniel Webber), who is currently doing covers but becomes their lead singer.  The next step for the band is to play their first show.  Since this is heavy metal, it should not be surprising that their initial gig quickly devolves into a fistfight with the audience.  Once that is settled, an audience member roars their name and a legend is born.  Soon they are performing at all the venues around Los Angeles, which begins to bring the attentions of record labels.  The person sent to sign Mötley Crüe to a deal is Tom Zutaut (Pete Davidson), who represents Elektra Records.  Their meeting is in a wildly inappropriate location, but they agree to a five-album contract.  It is around this time they get a manager, Don McGhee (David Costabile), who is there to keep them on the road and turn a blind eye to their illicit activities.  By this point in the movie, we have already seen them do a number of outrageous acts revolving around sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.  It is when they start touring that they take their outrageous behavior to another level.  Unfortunately, the crazier they act, the more the public wants it, and they feel they must top whatever it is they have previously done.  It also brings financial success, the bulk of which is spent on more partying (and everything that entails), and only serves to make things worse.  One of the first to fall is Vince, who while married and with a daughter he adores, gets into a drunk driving accident that leads to deaths and him being charged with vehicular manslaughter.  This does not stop his mischief on the road, and coming home from a tour, he finds that his wife, Sharise Ruddell-Neil (Leven Rambin), and daughter have left him.  Finally, Vince’s daughter dies of stomach cancer.  With all these things going on, and the group demanding his attention, he is the first to leave.  Tommy has his problems, too, getting married to Heather Locklear (Rebekah Graf), and being unfaithful to her for most of the marriage.  As for Mick, the pain his body puts him through leads to more drinking for him, and pill abuse, before finally getting hip replacement surgery.  Perhaps the worst off is Nikki.  His earlier addictive behavior turns into a heroin habit, which he refers to as his first true love.  Because of it, he is unable to function properly at Tommy’s wedding, and is largely oblivious to the band’s downfall and Vince’s issues.  It is not until an overdose and relapse, which he calls rock bottom, that he decides to turn his life around for the better.  As with any addict, this means apologizing to the people he loves.  As Mötley Crüe has been, in his mind, his only real family, they are the ones he turns to in order to make amends.  Together once more, and sober, they have a rebirth until they play their final show in 2015.

There are a lot of problems with The Dirt, and under no circumstances do I think you should watch it.  If the subject of Mötley Crüe interests you at all, let this review suffice, or any other research you choose to do on your own.  I say this to spare you not only the scenes of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll that are frequent during its runtime, but also the satanic images they splattered all over their promotional material.  There is no reason to gaze at this garbage, and I shall soon be going to Confession.  Then again, I kind of knew what I was getting into when I pushed play.  Before doing so, I watched the preview.  It indicated that while it would be showing a great deal of inappropriate material, it would also put on display the terrible cost of such out of control revelry.  There is a price to pay, either in this world or the next, for turning your back on God.  This is precisely what the band did in their early years in their pursuit of insanity.  Though it is not presented in Christian terms, one can look at an encounter with Ozzy Osbourne (Tony Cavalero) they have during their first tour as a sign from God of the awful things to come.  If you know anything about Osbourne’s own career, you might think me foolish for making the comparison, but bear with me.  God’s messengers can come in many varieties.  Ozzy specifically warns them about the lifestyle on which they are embarking, doing so in deed and word.  The words are easy enough to understand (remarkably, given their source), and they are punctuated with him urinating and then . . . well, I am not going to say what he does next.  This is all done in the name of rock n’ roll, and the group see it as what they need to excel in to be famous.  No amount of sin is worth losing Heaven, even if it does bring you fame and fortune.  When one discovers the value of remaining with God, everything else pales in comparison.  Church history is full of people discovering this for themselves, and in many respects, it is what members of religious orders do when they begin consecrated life.  They are giving up the world for the sake of God.  While by no means in the same vein, it takes Nikki hitting rock bottom, along with the rest of his mates in their own way, in order to realize something of greater significance than anything else in their individual lives.  For me, and I pray for you, that is God.

Now that I have seen The Dirt, please pray that I can forget about it entirely.  Spiritually speaking, this is what Confession is meant to do.  When we have a contrite heart, we offer up our sins to God in the hopes of reconciliation with Him.  This means going forward and not living in the past.  This is what a movie like this does, and I have no desire to celebrate it.  Do not see it.