A Complete Unknown

To take a fascinating individual who has become a major influence in music and literature, to be blended into a cheesy and standard Hollywood Biopic is truly a big crime.

Bob Dylan music and his personal life is fascinating, especially what Dylan has become important in music history and everything around him. What James Mangold offers is a disappointing and standard approach of the usual Hollywood Biopic of a famed individual that doesn't really do full justice to its core. Filled with wonderful performances from all the cast, production designs, and the musical score/singing moments, the heart of Bob Dylan still lingers around as Mangold does offer some interesting direction choices to explore Dylan and some important moments in his life. But what fails to make the movie a masterpiece is, as mentioned, the standard approach to how it's told. Filled with cliches and uninteresting choices, its atmosphere and character development feels too cheesy and predictable, to the point it doesn't offer anything really new. Rather it becomes tiresome and doesn't do justice to what made Dylan amazing and special.

I understand what Mangold is wanting to explore about Dylan but with bland writing and concepts that feel overdone, and not offering other aspects that could have been explored, it's aimless.

If you want a good Bob Dylan story, I recommend No Direction Home, Dont Look Back, and Renaldo and Clara.