I was one of those guys into Metallica before the rest of the world ever heard of them. I don't say that out of some incessant desire to proclaim my loyalty as one of their true die hard fans, because I'm not. I haven't really enjoyed their musical output of the past decade, and much of what's interesting about them now has little to do with their music... the Napster debacle, guitarist James Hetfield's rehab, suing a perfume company that named one of their fragrances "Metallica," band members picking on each other in interviews, hiring a therapist to help them solve their problems with each other. I guess I make the claim because I've watched my onetime favorite band go from being young, hungry & cutting-edge, to becoming more like a dysfunctional family as they got bigger (and older). Some Kind of Monster isn't a biography or concert film, nor is it a Behind the Music type of career retrospective, although it contains some elements of all three. But it is a fairly candid documentation of a band on the verge of falling apart, much like a married couple contemplating divorce. And the title couldn't be more accurate...the film is at its best when its subjects are at their worst.