Hired Gun

Really enjoyed watching this and learned a lot about the lives these guys had.

What struck me in the end was nobody was overly bitter (at least in this film) or resentful other than the lack of communication when their time was up.

They seemed to know the precarious edge that chose to live on and what that meant in job security.But happy to have been part of something big and creative.

Absolutely incredible! if you are a fan of music you MUST see this film. Ideally on the big screen! I have seen the film 3 times, at SXSW, in the theater, and on DVD, and I well up every time. The "Hired Guns" featured are the most talented musicians in the world and each of their stories are incredible. Highly recommended.

Everything in this movie appears to be something unknown to the regular music lover like me. The hired guns were something I didn't even considered in the music industry.

Really good featured musicians, fun stories. Really great job. You must see it, trust me!

This documentary focuses on what's called "hired guns", especially in the rock and heavy metal genre. Basically a "hired gun" is a super talented musician who can, at a moment's notice, play as a studio musician or actually join a band and tour with them. However, in the often cold and brutal musical world, they will have no tenure, receive low pay, and often get no credit for their contributions.

As one sees in the film, some of the "hired guns" will emerge and prosper from their stints while others will not and even eventually experience tragic consequences. The film, directed by Fran Strine, jumps from one interviewee to another, and initially seemed disjointed, since I really wasn't familiar with most of the musicians and record execs. However, the power of the individual stories overrode all else, in my opinion, and I certainly not only was inspired by these tales but also learned a lot about a genre I knew little about.

As I've read in some reviews this documentary can certainly fall into the category of such other movies as "20 Feet From Stardom", "The Wrecking Crew", and "Standing in the Shadows of Motown", except this doc centers on rock and heavy metal bands and players.

I have to admit that it took me fifty years to understand that some band players are just 'hired guns', never knew about that, I always thought they just played in different bands as full members. So for that only this documentary was an eye opener for me, and a good reason to watch it. It was very interesting to see the view of those artists on the bands they played with, and how some of those 'celebrities' are just a bunch of egoistic egocentric bastards, like Billy Joel in this documentary. He's a heartless very self-centered egoistic prick that doesn't deserve anybody buying his music. On the other hand you can witness what a wonderful guy his drummer Liberty DeVitto is, still forgiving everything and playing for peanuts. But there are also others than Billy Joel that are just wannabe good people and I guess that once you got a bit of success you just look at other people like they are your possession. In this documentary you also discover nice celebrities, with a golden heart, like Alice Cooper, Ozzy and Pink, not directly people that I would have thought being nice persons in daily life. So never judge a book by it's cover. The documentary is very well made, with tons of relevant interviews of great side artists, guitar and drum virtuoses that made the name of some big bands without ever being recognized. Interviews with hired guns, producers, artists and so on, it all passes the revue and it's very interesting and pleasant to listen to. If you are a music fan you should definitely watch Hired Gun. I will always listen to music in a different way now.