AKA CHARLIE SHEEN (2025)

It's pretty amazing that you have a man with a live-changing disease, who was fired from a dream job getting 2M dollars per situation-comedy episode, who did every drug in the book and actually made drugs seem cool to kids on the internet... 

With all that, the director of AKA CHARLIE SHEEN seems intent on capturing Sheen's smug, cat-that-ate-the-canary grin about all the things that lead to one person's complete and utter downfall: Has it been long enough since the famous (or infamous) 2011 "Winning" breakdown that this all all really cool now? That's surprising given the whole MeToo Movement (backed by Netflix from the start) that made this kind of lionizing glimpse into womanizing and women-beating so... not popular... But other than the fact that the writer/director seems like an adoring fanboy not only interviewing Charlie Sheen but celebrating his actions, you have a subject that's interesting enough to merit a pretty interesting documentary... That's sporadically effective also despite how many unnecessary filler distractions are spliced throughout almost every word Sheen speaks about his roller-coaster life... The famous indie MY DINNER WITH ANDRE had a far less interesting subject taking about things at a restaurant table with very few edits... So of all people, Charlie "I've Done Everything Under the Sun" Sheen didn't need every syllable spoken to be orchestrated/backed by some kind of pop culture snippet, ranging from Charlie's own films (including Super 8 from childhood) to various old commercials... Also, the interviews weren't as good as they could have been, including Sheen's first ex-wife, who pretends she was reluctant to be interviewed, and that without her input the doc wouldn't be as interesting... The only truly interesting person here is Sheen himself, who had had the world hypnotized on cheap smoky-roomed online videos during his meltdown, and yet, this sycophantic (and sometimes downright intrusive) director didn't seem to have the faith that Sheen himself could carry his own vehicle...  But since Netflix only makes personal-propaganda pieces disguised as documentaries, in the end, no matter who's being covered, you can't delve any deeper than personal promotion. Rates: **1/2