We're introduced to Jerry McGill three days after he's been diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer, with an emergency surgery scheduled in to take place in just a matter of weeks. At age 70, Jerry is the same as he's always been; a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, anger-fuelled train-wreck of a man who simultaneously attracts and burns up all those around him.
The movie's director and narrator, Irish-man Paul Duane, pays some lip-service to just how influential a man McGill was to the Memphis music scene and country music in general. There is also reference to McGill's unlawful past, having been in and out of jail for bank robberies and other such crimes. However, Duane doesn't seem to want to focus too much on his subject's very interesting backstory, instead honing in on his return to recording music and performing live for the first time in decades.
So we're toyed with a documentary about a man with a history dying to be told, and we're denied that. Instead we're left in the company of McGill as he is now, and this can't be underlined enough: he is a mesmerizingly horrible human being. Early scenes with McGill crying over facing the end of his life are wiped clear from your memory when you see him physically attacking his put-upon fiance, or injecting cancer medication into his arm like its heroin. There is the question of whether or not McGill is putting on a show because he's now in front of the camera, but it's never raised again.
Duane is also a problem unto himself, with his overly intrusive and biased narration, and in later scenes getting directly involved in McGill's life. The issue is that we have no idea who Duane is; is he a massive McGill fan? Is he just here for work? Did he know what he was getting into before filming began? By involving himself, he draws focus to himself, but we don't know what his motivations are regarding the making of this movie, so like everything else on show, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
McGill passed away earlier this year, and his life story is clearly one that is worth being told, but unfortunately that is exactly what this movie has forgotten to do.