Josh Reviews aka Charlie Sheen
Aka Charlie Sheen is a two-part documentary available on Netflix, looking back at the wild and crazy life and career of Charlie Sheen, directed by Andrew Renzi.
Mr. Sheen has been in the headlines, and a source of public fascination, for decades. He’s been hugely successful as a movie star and a TV star, though more often than not it’s his off-screen shenanigans that have drawn the public’s attention.
I must admit, I’ve never been all that interested in Charlie Sheen. Few of his major movie successes ever really appealed to me. (Platoon is great, though I always preferred Born on the Fourth of July. Most of my friends were obsessed with Hot Shots when it came out — and even more so when Part Deux was released — but I was always more of a Bull Durham type of fellow myself.) I never watched Spin City or Two and a Half Men. So when this documentary was announced, while I was curious — I definitely remember all the “tiger blood” stuff and was interested to see what shape Charlie Sheen was in these days — I didn’t think I’d watch it.
But I’ve listened to several compelling interviews that Mr. Sheen did recently, to promote this project, especially a terrific conversation with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman on Armchair Expert, and I found myself more intrigued than I’d expected. I enjoyed hearing Mr. Sheen talk about his story. He’s a charismatic fellow and a great storyteller, and suddenly I had a desire to check out this documentary.
Which brought me to aka Charlie Sheen, which I thoroughly enjoyed!
The through-line of the documentary is a lengthy interview with Mr. Sheen himself. This is a great choice, as it allows Mr. Sheen to take us through his life’s journey. He’s not an unbiased narrator, but he’s a terrific storyteller, so he’s a fantastic guide through this film, entertaining and insightful. I could listen to this guy spin yarns forever. And I did get the sense that Mr. Sheen was being quite candid and open about all his triumphs and travails. Director Andrew Renzi made the unusual choice to include his own off-camera voice frequently during the film, asking questions of Mr. Sheen and pushing and probing in different areas. That choice works well, as it’s helpful to hear him ask many of the questions we the audience want asked, and it helps the film feel like an actual, honest conversation rather than a staged presentation.
And wow, what a life Charlie Sheen has lived! This is not a short film (each of the two parts is about an hour and a half), but it is packed full of incident!! It didn’t feel rushed — Mr. Renzi does a terrific job pacing the unfolding of this crazy story — but it also feels like there could easily have been another hour or two to this project!
I liked the cheeky way the film was structured, divided into three parts: “Partying”, “Partying with Problems”, and then “Problems”. (There’s also a surprise fourth section at the end, which I won’t spoil here.)
The film is packed with fascinating moments and sequences. I was enormously taken with the many clips we got to see of the adorable Super 8 movies Mr. Sheen made as a kid with his brother Emilio Estevez (he was Carlos Estevez back then) and their other friends, many of whom also became famous). (One of those friends, Sean Penn, repeatedly threatens to steal this film right out from under Mr. Sheen, during his incredibly frank, fascinating, and funny interview segments.) It was interesting to explore Mr. Sheen’s early, pre-famous life, especially the way the doc digs into the trauma the family experienced following Mr. Sheen’s father Martin Sheen’s experiences making Apocalypse Now. (As an aside: if you’ve never watched Hearts of Darkness, about the making of Apocalypse Now, I highly recommend it!!) A highlight of this doc is the hilarious montage of all the death & murder in the super 8 movies Mr. Sheen & Mr. Estevez made following Apocalypse Now, spliced together with Martin Sheen’s many onscreen deaths over the years! I guess there might have been a little childhood trauma in there…!
I’m a movie fan, so my favorite parts of this doc were the explorations of Mr. Sheen’s many big movie roles. The stories about his brief but movie-stealing appearance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off are legendary, but always cool to explore. I was interested when the film dug into Mr. Sheen’s fruitful creative partnership with Oliver Stone (in Platoon and Wall Street). I got a huge laugh when we hear Mr. Sheen recount the moment when his off-screen drug use caused him to nearly fall asleep on camera, and then the doc cleverly showed us a clip of the exact moment in the film (the 1998 movie Free Money) when this happened!
The doc doesn’t shy away from the epic misbehavior that has filled Mr. Sheen’s life. Mr. Renzi strikes a careful balance in allowing these lengthy sequences in the doc to be fun and funny, without excusing Mr. Sheen’s misbehavior or turning away from how awful and disturbing and dangerous this often was. Nor does the film ever turn into a “tut tutting” slog of moralizing. I’m impressed that Mr. Renzi was able to include interviews with all of Mr. Sheen’s (many) ex-wives. It’s fascinating to hear their perspectives. (It’s also interesting how, similarly to Billy Joel’s ex-wives in his recent doc, these women, who seem to have been treated shabbily or worse by Mr. Sheen, all do still seem to like and care about him!)
I do wish the film had allowed someone else to appear on screen to address and “fact check” Mr. Sheen’s protestations that he did not rape Corey Haim, nor did he ever give anyone HIV as he was accused of doing. Those are some awful allegations against Mr. Sheen, and while, as I’d noted above, Mr. Sheen does appear to be truthful here as he recounts the events of his life, those accusations are so serious that I think it’d have been helpful to have also heard about them from some other sources.
Mr. Sheen has lived his entire life in the public eye, but I was impressed how many new things I learned about him in this doc. A lot of press was made about Mr. Sheen’s comments, towards the end of the doc, about his sexuality. But more interesting to me were learning that, for instance, Mr. Sheen has five kids!! I never knew that! Also, we’ve all apparently been been pronouncing Estevez wrong. Wow.
The film reaches an emotional peak towards the end. I was impressed. I never expected to care much about Charlie Sheen. There are some lovely moments in the film’s last twenty or so minutes. I loved getting to see a glimpse of Mr. Sheen’s life now, especially his hilarious post-it notes to his son.
I’m so pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed watching aka Charlie Sheen! I hope everyone who appears in this film, including Mr. Sheen, are able to find happiness and peace in the years ahead.
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