About halfway through this "documentary" I suddenly realized that the film may, in fact, have been a "mockumentary". Consider the following:
* The director/interviewer kept saying to the audience "I wanted to play such-and-such a song by Kurt/Nirvana, but the record label wouldn't give me permission, so here is another song by some band you've never heard of"
* The complete ineptitude of the celebrity stalkers, whose digital camera runs out of battery power just as they get close to the studio that Courtney Love is recording in... and later are so nervous at an official function (where they are pretending to be the media) that they actually fail to ask Courtney Love the required questions.
* The appearance of El Duce and his band "The Mentors" singing songs about sex slaves while dressed in leather executioner's gear - and then discovering that HE'S the guy who claims Courtney Love asked him to knock off Kurt.
* In-depth Interviews with drug addicts and other "low-life" who claim to have met Kurt.
* Courtney Love's father interpreting certain Nirvana lyrics as being a reference to LSD (a questionable complaint coming from someone who used to work as a roadie for the Grateful Dead).
* The interviewer/director getting up at an official ACLU function and speaking directly AFTER Courtney Love's speech. (didn't anyone actually notice?) As all these things came together, I honestly felt that the documentary was SO bad that it could not be anything else but deliberate. Armed with the theory that this was actually a mockumentary I was surprised to learn from a cursory internet search that the film is actually a real attempt at a documentary.
Given the complete disaster that this documentary is, the only film that it could therefore be compared to is Ed Wood's "Plan Nine From Outer Space". The aimlessness and ineptitude of the documentary is so pronounced that it actually becomes quite entertaining after a while. As soon as El Duce and The Mentors came into the equation I was almost howling on the floor laughing. The conspiracies surrounding Cobain's death should have been treated seriously - but they are examined in such a way as to almost be an insult to those who made the conspiracies up, let alone the memory of Cobain.
Neither Dave Grohl nor Krist Novoselic (the other two members of Nirvana) are interviewed or even seen throughout the film. Other major figures, such as Kurt's immediate family, the band's manager and other record company execs are also missing from the film. Instead we are treated to a cavalcade of background figures (most of whom are drug addicts) who claim to have met and influenced Cobain way before he was a star and who all, for some reason, think that it is possible that Kurt had been murdered.
Actual important leads - such as evidence that Kurt's credit card was used a few days after his death - are mentioned but never followed up and are eventually forgotten in favour of tracking down the mysterious (and ultimately hilarious) El Duce and spending time with clueless celebrity stalkers who spend more time on camera talking about what they do rather than actually doing anything.
In summary, the documentary itself is far more entertaining than the subject it purports to be investigating - but entertaining only because of its chaotic and misguided interviewer who interviews all the wrong people and investigates all the wrong theories. It is about as compelling as driving past a flaming car wreck that had run over and killed a circus clown.
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