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Sid Vicious: His Final Hours |
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Written by Kevin Stanley
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23 07 2010 |
.jpg "Image") Director: Paul Griffin
Starring: Steve Connolly, Malcolm McLaren, Eileen Polk, Alan Jones, Peter Kodik
Sid Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, was the replacement bassist for the influential punk band Sex Pistols. He took his stage name ‘Vicious' from his pet hamster, and while he was not known as an aggressive or violent person before becoming involved with the Sex Pistols, first as an avid fan and later as the ‘natural' replacement for the departing bassist. He spent this period of time trying to live up to his new name.
Ritchie was the result of a broken marriage and of a ‘doting' mother,
who introduced her son to drugs (mainly speed) at an early age, and
throughout his short life became one of his constant drug partners,
along with Nancy.
In this documentary of the people interviewed, only a former roadie for
the Sex Pistols, Steve Connolly, seems to show any hint of genuine
remorse while a number of other interviewees, from Sex Pistols Band
Manager, Malcolm McLaren and friends such as Eileen Polk, Alan Jones
and the man that scored Ritchie his final hit - Peter Kodik seem to
almost smile their way through talking about Ritchie's life and death,
devoid of any sense of culpability for Ritchie's death.
Ritchie was clearly surrounded by people enabling him to keep slowly
killing himself. Clearly in the end no one can really be to blame other
than Ritchie himself. We all make our own decisions and he was clearly
heavily addicted to a myriad of drugs, none less than heroin, but
surely he could have been offered more assistance to dry up and come
clean than what his hapless manager, McLaren, gave him - sending him
out on tour - to alleviate the boredom and subsequently kerb his
constant drug use - to Amsterdam. Insane. McLaren was clearly extremely
naïve, which although he admits to some extent, he never appears to be
remorseful.
Ritchie clearly needed long-term psychiatric help, but by the end he
was it seems determined to join his lover Nancy, and to be at rest.
Deeply afraid of having to return to jail for the suspected murder of
Nancy, he killed himself. At least that was how it originally had
appeared. Until in 1996 just before her own death, also from years of
drugs abuse, his mother confessed to a journalist, to having ‘killed'
her own son. A mercy killing, she'd given him enough heroin to kill him.
This fairly short documentary is interesting, but it could have done
with a bit more background information on Ritchie, the involvement of
Nancy, and Ritchie's involvement in the Sex Pistols, even if it does
really only cover the last 24 hours of his life (being part of the
Final 24 series). The biggest downside however is the repetitive,
uninspired and flat narration by Danny Wallace.
Overall, though, it was a very good documentary to those previously
unacquainted with Sid Vicious and the events surrounding his death.
It's certainly worth a viewing.
Released: July 19th 2010 |
