The Return of Bruno Reviews

To be fair, this is more of an 85%. But still, it's a great rockumentary. Yes this was during the 80's heyday of actors hiring a band, cutting an album and pretending to be rock stars (Don Johnson, anyone? Patrick Swayze Like The Wind?), but at least Bruce Willis brings his goofball sense of humor to things and never takes himself too seriously.

The real kick is the number of heavy hitters in the music biz who did some great straight-faced interviews about the legendary (and imaginary) Bruno Radolini. Billed as "another" episode of ROCK HEROES hosted by Dick Clark, it chronicles Bruno's rise from the clubs in Trenton NJ (around the time he helped form the Beatles) through his American Bandstand days, the psychedelic era, his sadly overlooked performance at Woodstock, etc.

The last twenty or thirty minutes are concert footage of Bruce Willis basically having a good time. And for what it is, it's fun - he can sing, the music's pretty good, and his drummer is.... probably gay. Or at least firmly in the 80's.

But the concert is skippable. The real gold is the mockumentary itself. Well-written, well researched and shot (the fake footage is all shot on similar stock to the time period to great effect) and very funny.

Unavailable on DVD unless you can find somebody hawking a home-rip online.

Willis ? surprisingly okay
Bruno has done it all: He brought the Beatles together. He made Woodstock free. He was Bruce Lee