The musician Shannon Hoon, who died in 1995 of complications from a drug overdose at the age of 28, was an inveterate self-chronicler. The documentary “All I Can Say” credits Hoon as one of four directors and was assembled from video footage he recorded from 1990 until mere hours before his death. It chronicles, among other things, the rise and decline of his band Blind Melon.
The movie will be most profitably consumed by fans — people who believe Hoon earned the tribute. While one does not want to be cruel, one is obliged to be frank. Hoon is not a figure like John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain, who elicit widespread curiosity about what great work they might have produced had they not died young. Blind Melon’s sole hit was “No Rain,” a sweet earworm that charted almost a year after the band released the album from which it spun.
A cautionary tale can be seen in the margins of the footage. The band, it turns out, got a major label contract with, as a group member is heard admitting off-screen, “barely enough songs to get through a showcase.” Late in the film, after canceling a tour, Hoon flushes a laudatory print article about the band down a toilet. He seems unable to put into action any strategy that could have steered the group from its quandary. Making not-too-clever home movies about it didn’t help.
The film’s other directors — Danny Clinch, Taryn Gould and Colleen Hennessey — try to wrest pathos from Hoon’s oft-belligerent delinquency, which gets him arrested more than once in this period. Near the movie’s end, he shaves his head, and one thinks: Well, yes, the fellow had serious problems. And like too many addicts, he ended up having to deal with them alone, it seems.
All I Can Say
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.
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