When you think of iconic hair bands, you probably think ofBon Jovi. The band behind hits like “You Give Love a Bad Name,” fronted by singer and eponymous frontmanJon Bon Jovi, is responsible for much of the image people associate with typical 1980s rock and roll, along with bands likeTwisted Sister,Mötley Crüe, andPoison. Whether you’re a die-hard fan of the band or simply remember “Wanted Dead or Alive” fromRock of Ages, Hulu and directorGotham Choprahave arrived with a new documentary about the band’s history:Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story.
Following in the footsteps of documentaries likeWham!andThe Greatest Night in Pop,Thank You, Goodnightfollows both the history of the band, from its beginnings in New Jersey in 1983 to now, as well as a contemporary look at the band, with footage from 2022 following the eponymous singer as he attempts to prepare for the band’s fortieth anniversary and fights various vocal health issues along the way. The series takes a deep dive into both the band’s discography and Bon Jovi’s perspective on it at sixty years old,a kind of nostalgia trap for anyone who graduated high school in 1984and spends their days following rock and roll stars around the country.
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story
Exploring the career of a famous rock band, a film delves into their early days, breakthrough hits, and the highs and lows of the music industry. It captures the essence of their enduring appeal through behind-the-scenes insights, concert clips, and candid interviews with band members and those who know them best.
‘Thank You, Goodnight’ Doesn’t Know Where to Put Its Focus
Withboth present and past elements of the story fighting for supremacyover the course of four episodes, there’s a strange kind of indecision in the docuseries, with almost no connective tissue between the two beyond the singer himself and a handful of their hits (mostly off ofSlippery When Wet). With each episode capping out at around ninety minutes each,it makes you wonder whether it would’ve been better to pick one or the other, considering neither offers much in the way of new information that isn’t available on Wikipedia. Six hours of documentary on any one subject is an awful lot, even for the biggest superfan — and I doubt Bon Jovi diehards would learn much from what’s offered to begin with, as each episode runs in circles, dragging out eras of the band’s history so that every minute detail makes it to screen.
That’s all good and fun when it’s focusing on the most well-known parts of the band’s forty-year career, notably the making ofSlippery When Wet, which features their hit songs “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “Livin' on a Prayer,” and “Wanted Dead or Alive.” For eighties fanatics and nerds like me who love the minutiae of music production, there’s enough meat on the bone to keep you satisfied, butnot much else is worth the time it takes to slog throughall four episodes.
The series rambles like a relative who can never quite make it to the end of a story, who keeps diverting on side tangents that make you desperately wish you’d never asked. Similarly,the series’ attitude about the state of music outside of the bandis also giving “cranky uncle” — at one point, it pits Bon Jovi againstNirvanaand the grunge movement of the 1990s, which feels like a crock not only because it doesn’t make sense, but because many of the band’s contemporaries (notably singers likeDavid Bowie) had no qualms about embracing the style and the artists who came with it.
‘Thank You, Goodnight’ Is Too Biased In Its Own History to Work
The larger problem, though, ishow insular the documentary is as a project. It feels like a rock’n’roll boys’ club, with not a single talking head featured who wasn’t directly involved with or in the band at some point in history. (The only woman featured is Bon Jovi’s wifeDorothea Bongiovi, despite their large female following, which is also telling.) Where director Chopra had an opportunity to explore the band’s impact on music history, as one of the first rock acts to make it big in the MTV era, he chose instead to focus on petty grievances and personal matters, the kind of sex, drugs, and rock and roll content that’s been explored so extensively in almost every other rock doc that the horse being beaten isn’t just dead at this point, it’s decayed away to nothing but bones.
Matters aren’t helped by the perspectives of many of the talking heads. It’s already difficult for me to trust a doc that doesn’t bother to source any academics or other contemporaries — something that cannot possibly have been difficult, given the amount of writing that exists on hair bands and Bon Jovi specifically — but when your interviewee’s attitude is that of “I’m just telling it how it is” (a real quote from former guitaristRichie Sambora, I kid you not),the story being told boils down to nothing more than bog-standard pettinessin my eyes. (The same is true of former managerDoc McGhee, who contributes nothing but proving the theory that rock band managers are total scumbags.) You’re being barred from the boys’ club even as you sit through six hours of them telling their stories, and even thenit still feels disparate, like there’s still enough in-fighting in the band that Chopra couldn’t decide what kind of story to tell.
It all comes back around to Jon Bon Jovi himself, as we watch him attempt to recover his singing voice in time to tour for the band’s anniversary. While he’s charismatic, and it’s no surprise to anyone why he was such a hit as a frontman in the ’80s,it’s tough to garner much sympathyfor a millionaire who’s seen unparalleled success in his lifetime, especially when contemporary bands have faced far bigger tragedies than their singer simply getting older and losing his voice. (Cue me staring at my collection ofQueenrecords.)
There’s not enough depth to the modern sections of the series to really give us an understanding of the band as it stands anyway, beyond having lost two founding members and hitting forty years of making music. I hesitate to call this an attempt at a comeback (even though it clearly is, given their recently released single, “Legendary”), because it seems like they’ve tried too hard to stay relevant for the last twenty years, but for anyone who isn’t a diehard, allThank You, Goodnightseems to do is make it seem like one — andskews a little too much towards making the band look like has-beens.
Thank You, Goodnight doesn’t quite know what it’s doing, a boys' club that refuses to let the viewer in.
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Storypremieres April 26 on Hulu.
