A heavy metal fan I'm not, the only Ozzy song I know is Sabbath's "Paranoid" and I didn't see a single episode of "The Osbournes" and yet somehow you feel you know this massive personality very well. Broken into two lots pre- and post- his days with Black Sabbath, this bio-documentary covers a lot of ground and does so entertainingly. Even though it's co-produced by his son Jack, it pulls no punches in its true telling of Osbourne's long journey of near self-destruction before he at long last kicked his various habits in his 60's.
Yes, he seems somewhat shambling, even ridiculous at times as he warms up his voice before a gig, but elsewhere, as you'd expect, the man himself is brutally honest in his self-assessment, as indeed are almost all his coterie of family and friends. Of course much of the early scene-setting material comprises celebrity endorsements from members of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Metallica and even Sir Paul McCartney, before the story goes back to his post -war Birmingam roots and takes us chronologically through his larger-than-life and times.
As you can probably tell there isn't much originality in the techniques used to bring Ozzy's story to life, even the act of taking him back to his childhood haunts, which recalls nothing so much as the well-known re-election Party Political Broadcast by the then Tory Prime Minister, John Major. Yes some of the over-the-top segments seem apocryphal, even by Osbourne standards and sure, the relentless loud HM music blasted way over my head much of the time. All his well-documented vices, particularly drink and drugs, are aired without much shame or regret and yet you do believe he's turned the corner himself.
Looking at him today, rather like the other best-known "dead man walking" Keith Richards, you wonder just how he is, to paraphrase Elton John, still standing, but, sanctimonious title apart, this was an intriguing and watchable insight into the life of an old warrior who may just have found peace in his own time, in the nick of time.
