Starring Stewart Copeland, Sting, Andy Summers, Kim Turner, Miles Copeland, Ian Copeland
Written By: Stewart Copeland
Directed By: Stewart Copeland
Studio: Vivendi Visual Entertainment
Buy on Amazon.com link

Ah Do Do Do, Da Da Da…If you are a fan of The Police, than you’re in for a treat as Stewart Copeland walks you through the years of being in one of the biggest bands..ever. I was looking forward to seeing this DVD once I heard about it since I love the Police. I liked them back when they existed, but didn’t listen to them seriously until college. I just forgot how many classic hits the band has had, and how great a songwriter Sting was. Everyone Stares: the Police Inside Out is a documentary that has homemade video to tell a story along with Copeland narrating. Instead of seeing the band from an outsider’s point of view, you can to see things unfold through Stewart Copeland’s eyes..or camera lens. This is a must-see for any Police/Sting fans!

Stewart Copeland, the drummer of the Police started to film EVERYTHING right before the band got insanely huge, until the end of the band’s career in the mid-80s. So thanks to Stewart Copeland’s Super-8 camera, that’s where all this footage comes from. Besides directing all the videos, Copeland also edited a shitload of hours of video, as well as narrating the film and comments through text when needed. Stewart explains in the DVD liner notes that he had all this footage in shoe boxes for 20 years. Once technology got better, he started to learn all that stuff and cut this whole movie himself. He even re-sampled master tapes of Police songs to make a score out of it. Copeland is now a film composer and has composed movies like Highlander II, Men at work, Very Bad Things, Airborne, and lots others.

From the start of the documentary, Copeland talks about being in the band and how they struggled to get by. Then one day, the Police get a number one hit on the airwaves in the UK and all hell breaks loose. You get to witness firsthand how the band felt as they are trying to get to their cars; as crazy Police fans won’t let them leave the building. After witnessing that, the band realized how far they come and how popular they become. For 75 minutes, you see through video as a small rock band skyrockets to the most popular band in the world. You also get to see the band goof off, play their music on stage, riding in the tours buses, getting chased by crazed fans, making videos, seeing crew members jam, recording sessions, just everything you would expect from a documentary like this. At the time, I can imagine Sting and everyone was probably pissed off at Stewart for NEVER putting down the damn camera but I’m sure they are happy he did now (or maybe not?). Now they have all that homemade videos to watch for years to come and look back on.

This documentary is great because it shows a personal account on where a band started and where it ended up. It slightly shows how things went wrong which you don’t normally see with band documentaries. You get up close footage of the band performing, and a lot of the amusing behind the scenes stuff fans don’t normally see. At one point during a concert, Copeland put the camera behind him and he’s talking to the camera in mid-song! You hear Sting start screaming at the crowd, and Copeland goes to the camera and says there is a fight going on in the crowd. That’s just awesome! I like how goofy the band was in the beginning, especially Andy Summers. Sting was even a little bit silly as well, but you can sort of tell when he’s done playing around and it’s all about the music. During the recording of Ghost in the Machine, he doesn’t want to record with the other musicians and in the end, that seemed like the downfall of the band. It just wasn’t fun anymore and you can only go so far after you reached the top.

The movie could have used some more narrating by Copeland but I think the video was self-explanatory sometimes. Towards the end, there was less of it and could have use it to more. Obviously the video was a little shaky at times but I was actually surprised how well everything looked back then. I believe after Copeland played this film at Sundance, professionals cleaned it up and re-edited it and made it flow better. Besides all the footage that was shown in the film, you can also see a lot more in the extras section as well as hear commentary from 2/3 of the Police. Gee I wonder who didn’t participate?

Like I said above, if you are a Police fan, you will enjoy this a lot. For me, I didn’t really know much about the band except the general things. Shit, I didn’t even know Stewart Copeland was American! Haha. Ok, so he was in a band with 2 British guys and grew up in Lebanon, how am I suppose to know?! But anyway, check out this homemade documentary by Copeland because it’s pretty cool!

Features:
-Commentary with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers
-Extra Footage

Audio:
ENGLISH: PCM Stereo
ENGLISH: DTS 5.1

Video:
Standard 1.33:1 Color

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: I just enjoyed a lot of the concert footage, and liked when Copeland put the camera behind him while he was drumming.
Rating: NR
Running Time: 75 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: