Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out

In 'Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out', Stewart Copeland presents a behind-the-scenes, and very unique, look at The Police, from their inception to the very end.

The premise is Stewart buys an 8mm camera and begins filming his band from the very, very beginning. In many ways, this film brings you into the perspective of being in a band going from nearly nothing to being the biggest band on the planet, all in under 5 years. The film is shot on 8mm, so it has a grainy, sort of distorted style at times. However, this film is really beautiful. Copeland definitely has an eye for a shot, and mixed amongst the band messing around, playing live, or signing autographs for fans, are beautiful interspersed shots of various locations The Police sauntered through during their days.

This movie may not be for everyone. At around 1:20 in length, it is a short, very entertaining look at one of the greatest rock bands of the 1980s. If you are a fan of The Police, you will absolutely love this film. If not, I believe you'll appreciate how this film is very different than other music documentaries. This really is a very good to outstanding film about music. The fact that it was filmed by a member of the band, and he has a great eye for film, is wholly unique. I highly recommend this film.

I saw the film at what I think was the third of three screenings at the Sundance Film Festival Tuesday night. I had modest expectations -- that were exceeded. The film's clearly not a glossy documentary, but it's certainly a cut above watching someone else's home movies. Copeland did a fine job of making the viewer feel included in the inner circle and created a fascinating document of a band's rise in popularity.

Everyone Stares is surprisingly poignant: you see the early camaraderie and friendship strain under the pressures of success and increased commercial expectations. Some reviewers have commented negatively on the story stopping before Synchronicity. I, on the other hand, think the core pieces of the story were told without embracing the final album (which, I'll add, is my least favorite of the five).

The soundtrack was inventive and enjoyable: Copeland deconstructed and remixed Police tracks, providing dubbed-out, looped versions that I really enjoyed both as film music and on its own.

From a music archivist point of view, it's unique and fascinating how Copeland managed to document as much as he did. Unlike a contrived "making of" video, this footage feels intimate and natural.

Here's how I'd sum this up: if you're predisposed to like The Police in the first place, you'll likely enjoy this movie. If not, well, there are other documentaries that probably relate to things you're interested in.

I have quite a few problems with this documentary, being a huge fan of The Police. (Own "Message in a Box", saw them live in 2007, I'm totally influenced by them in my own music...) This was a major letdown. Here's the problem.

Copeland is a terrible narrator, half the film he's mumbling on and has such little charisma for narrating a documentary. The quality of his super8 camera is brutal, and that in itself wouldn't be so bad, but the WHOLE documentary is basically told with this super8 grainy, look.

It doesn't capture the actual soul of what the Police were. It basically follows 79-84, as if it were just, "Oh then we got a track on the charts, then we went to a concert, then we did some traveling, oh then we did some more shows, now we're big, then we released a couple albums, then a few more shows, now it's over." The only sense of conflict in the band you will get in the WHOLE documentary is the following quips.

Stewart: I'm starting to hate this band.

Sting: Stewart... I blame you for all my problems.

--- That's it. This is the so called band that had it's drummer break the lead singers ribs, get into fistfights, and downright hate each other, but at the same time record some of the greatest rock music ever. It basically is something slapped together, with some old footage, called a Police DOCUMENTARY and it just, has no thread. Nothing, I can only say, SOME (but little), of the documentary was okay, and had a couple cool things going for it, some interesting little parts to it, but way to little to even make this a repeat viewing.

If you're a die hard police fan, it's only an hour, and you might get a chuckle, and a "Oh cool.", but believe me, for the 5 minutes of total time where you're interested, there's another 60 of boring crap. Why can't Martin Scorsese do a Police documentary?

Any Police fan (or any fan of rock music, really) will greatly enjoy this first-person view into the rise of what would become one of the world's biggest rock acts. Some have even compared The Police's success and popularity to The Beatles (yowza!) Band drummer/sometime composer/founder Stewart Copeland provides an amiable account of the growth and eventual "world domination" of his band, giving us intimate, funny, and entertaining insight into how a band goes from struggling with small gigs to playing multi-continent festivals and headlining tours. All the footage was shot by Copeland throughout the years with the band, pieced together by him, and he even did some remixes of existing Police material for the film's score (along with their more familiar, and not so familiar tunes).

Being a musician and music fan in general, I am always interested in watching band documentaries, interviews, etc... and this film does not disappoint. Give it a watch. Even if you're not necessarily a big fan of The Police, you may be by the end of this movie.

This is a pretty interesting documentary, in the early 80s if you ever saw Stewart Copeland with a camera and wondered what he was doing, this is it. It's basically home movies Copeland took when he was with The Police. It's interesting hearing what he has to say and to actually see some behind the scenes. Musically it's very nice but at times the audio is weak, that's due to the fact that a good audio system wasn't available but you get to hear some great live versions of some hits.There are some really funny moments an since it is a documentary, a few times I was reminded of This is Spinal Tap, which isn't a bad thing. We get to kind of know the band members and by the end I felt this film was a pleasing experience, showing us what it's like being a member of a rock group.