By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

John Ridley’s biopic focuses on Jimi Hendrix’s formative “London period”, just prior to his super-stardom. Outkast guitarist Andre Benjamin uncannily captures Hendrix’s mannerisms, and the Swinging Sixties are recreated with verisimilitude, but it’s more soap than rock opera. Glaring absence of original Hendrix music is a minus (the filmmakers couldn’t get the rights). Adding to the deficit, the movie feels like an unfinished project,  because it ends rather abruptly. Then again, so did Jimi’s journey.