It’s been called one of the greatest rock documentaries ever. It’s been praised for its acute portrayal of the ideological conflicts it encompasses, showing us the point at which hippy peacefulness ran fowl. It’s supposed to be this great think piece of modern culture.

Whatever.

Here’s the deal. In 1969, the Rolling Stones put on a gigantic free concert in San Francisco. Hippies came from across the country and Hell’s Angels were there for crowd control. You get together thousands of people who are stoned, drunk and high – and you’re going to have some problems. Well, they did. Apparently four people died in fights on this evening and one stabbing was caught on film.

So we’ve got this single event on tape, and so someone decided to make a full length documentary out of it. Only a third of the film is footage of the concert itself. We get lots of shots of people dancing around who are clearly high, and then we get a few scenes where the Stones are performing and trying to keep things peaceful at the same time. They keep having to stop because fights are breaking out, and Jagger pleads to no end for people to just “get it together”.

Prior to the concert itself we see the Stones and a lawyer trying to get the show together. There’s no real point to it, except to show that they should’ve known better. The group has to relocate at the last minute because previous venues are scared of what might happen with all these people.

Apparently they didn’t have enough footage to fill the time, so we see random bits of the Rolling Stones performing in a past show in New York. Of course, it’s fun to watch the Stones perform their hits in their prime, but that’s called a “Live Concert Film”, not a “documentary”.

Just minutes before the end of the “documentary”, we finally see what we’ve been waiting to see since the beginning. Some crazy guy comes out of the crown waving a gun in the air, and he is quickly brought down with the knives of the Hell’s Angels. It happens so quickly that they play it again in slow motion so we can see exactly where it happened.

Hippy dreams of peace gone sour? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have expected it to be otherwise. The first thing that comes into my mind when I hear the word ‘hippy’ is ‘violence’. Of course, they’re not all the same, but this was a group of people who wanted whatever they desired, without any of the consequences. Anyone who gets too extreme with that kind of mentality is going to be dangerous. Gimmie Shelter is simply a stark portrayal of the dark, murky events surrounding a dark, murky people.

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