Black Sabbath: The End of the End (2017) Online

The End Of The End is a film documenting the last ever -let's see- concert of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath that took place in their hometown Birmingham on February 4th 2017.

There is no Bill Ward here but we have Tony Iommi -remember: No Iommi, no Sabbath, this guy maintained the band alive at their worst moments in the 80s decade-, Geezer Butler and the ineffable Ozzy Osbourne, with their backs covered by Tommy Clufetos, a Ward impersonator that surely plays his ass off behind the drum kit.

At the first glance, this film seems to have all the right ingredients: an emotive and historic moment for the band, a band in good form, massive sound, good camera work, some hilarious Ozzy moments -the unplugged headphones made laugh so hard-, and the most important thing: a set list comprised of Sabbath classics such as Black Sabbath, Fairies Wear Boots, Into the Void, Snowblind, War Pigs, Behind the Wall of Sleep, N.I.B., Iron Man, Dirty Women, Children of the Grave and Paranoid, plus some studio live rehearsal tracks of infrequent songs like Wizard, Wicked World or Changes, recorded two days after the show.

What could go wrong with all these elements? Easy: The interview segments. At best tell anecdotes we all already know, or express the feelings of the band about their last concert or their relationship. I am not too sentimental, but I think some people can find some moments touching. But most of the times the interview segments are so obvious, when not plainly irrelevant, that they almost sound like a parody of rock star common places. But this is not the worst offense. To add insult to injury, that interview crap is over the songs, completely ruining some climatic moments. Come on guys!!! Shut up and let us listen the songs! You are not as eloquent as they are!! When you see that this happens in all the songs you just can not enjoy the next one because you are expecting what part they will this time. You can see the magical fingers of Iommi in action, but also too much audience overacting and pretending to sing -the crying hipster with the ridiculous mustache that appears at least four times was too much to handle for me.

The tragic thing is that after the credits you can listen to Behind The Wall Of Sleep and Dirty Women without interruptions and they are AWESOME. F***, all the concert could be that way if the only had cut all the interview crap.

Don't take me wrong, I am a Sabbath fan, but the final impression of this film is a two hours promo for the upcoming DVD.

"Black Sabbath: The End of The End" (2017 release; running time: 105 min.) is a documentary that focuses on the band's very last show ever, in February of 2017 in their home town of Birmingham, England. I recently stumbled onto this on Showtime while I was channel surfing. At that time the movie was about 15 minutes in, and I didn't think I was going to watch the whole thing, but somehow I did. I hadn't listened to their music in, literally, decades, and hence I was surprised how many of the songs I actually recognized.

Couple of comments: the music is for sure top notch, and it is amazing to see the three original members, each of them approaching 70 years now, perform at this high level, in particular Tony Iommi (who just recovered from blood cancer in 2016) is impressive, to say the least. Sadly, the movie is pretty much ruined by the incessant "chopping" edits. There are songs where, literally, every second if not more frequently than that, we jump to a different angle. Just sickening, and it it weren't for the strength of the music, I would've never finished watching this. Another annoyance is that oftentimes when Iommi goes into a guitar solo, we cut away from the concert footage (but the songs is still heard in the background) and jump to interviews with the original 3 members. A final note as to this film's running time: it is listed in IMDb as being 124 min. but the version I saw on SHO is nowhere near that, and ran just 1 hr. 45 min.

While I understand that die-hard Sabbath fans are gung-ho about this documentary, to rate this as being a 10 star movie (as in: the BEST EVER, of all times) is just plain silly. The shortcomings of this film are plenty and jump out at you. A missed opportunity, sadly.

I don't think I'm spoiling anything but I ticked the spoiler box anyway. This is a must see for all lovers of Black Sabbath and/or Rock/Hard Rock. The inventors of heavy metal are at their brilliant best. The concert footage is masterfully shot and edited, showing shots of the right things at the right time, with great meaningful close ups, especially Iommi's fingers (whats left of them) working their magic on his Gibson SG neck. The bass, vocal and guitar sounds are all flawless in the mix. (If I had a moan, the kick-drum is a bit low/clicky.) The footage comes from their final concert (in their hometown of Birmingham), and its interspersed by interviews with Ozzy, Geezer and Tony, sometimes all together, sometimes isolated. Ozzy is hilarious as usual, and Geezer and Tony add loads of jokes themselves. 3 great guys who don't take themselves too seriously at all, except that the sadness of the'final show is really apparent in their "post gig" faces. There's also great stuff they did a few days after the show in a Studio....but I wont spoil with any details, its just incredible!

There is not so to say, it was awesome! Great shots, great music... just perfect. Certainly a Black Sabbath concert to have in a collection, even tho the guys have their years they have really performed in a great way during this exhibition. I am a great fan of Ozzy Osbourne also and I have to say he surprised me with his good performance. We will never forget this great band, and no... let's hope it is not really the end...