Sundance 2006

Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out

 (Documentary)

By DENNIS HARVEY

Stewart Copeland films follow Police men Andy Sumners and Sting.

A Stewart Copeland production. Produced by Copeland. Executive producers, Miles Copeland, Derek Power. Co-producer, Brit Marling. Directed by Stewart Copeland.
 
With: Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland, Kim Turner, Danny Quatrochi, Jeff Seitz, Tam Fairgrieves, Miles Copeland, Ian Copeland.
 

Misleadingly titled "Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out" actually is a bird's-eye view of the relatively short-lived but hugely popular 1980s band. Docu's lack of insight (and much music) is particularly baffling given it's a filmic memoir of Police drummer Stewart Copeland. He's chosen simply to gloss over any acrimony among the three members, not to mention erasing sex and drugs from their rock 'n' roll lifestyle -- even things that were public knowledge at the time. Result is a trite, whitewashed-to-blankness vanity project most likely destined to reach diehard fans via home formats.

After a brief, glib verbal account of the bottle-blonds' early days in England, helmer gets to their first U.S. tour and "Everyone's" slim raison d'etat: His purchase of a Super 8 camera with which he recorded their subsequent rise to worldwide fame. But these sequences, which comprise the pic's bulk, are DVD-extra-banal: Sting, Andy Summers and Copeland clown around, play ever-bigger gigs, do in-stores, photo and vid shoots, etc. Copeland's voiceover narration doesn't stray far from gee-whiz cliches, either. Editing is brisk, content (and run-time) ultra-lite, tech package OK.

Camera (color, Super 8mm-to-HD), Copeland; editors, Copeland, Mike Cahill. Reviewed on DVD, San Francisco, Jan. 18, 2006. (In Sundance Film Festival -- Spectrum.) Running time: 74 MIN.