Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (2007)

Perfect cast and a good story

Boring

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Running Down a Dream is a great documentary for fans of the band. It has interviews with Petty and all of the key band members past and present, producers, family and others around the band. Great stories from them are mixed with past recordings of them when they were younger and lots of more recent live performances at various concerts.It covers the entire history of the band up until the time the documentary was made (2007). I loved the documentary as a big fan of the group.The only downside is that for non fans and even for more casual fans the doc has an incredibly long run time of about four hours. For me it flew by but the others got a bit bored. Maybe a version with less performances would have been a good idea to keep the great history and story in a more compact run time. They play almost entire songs during the doc so if you're not into that particular song you might be looking for the fast forward button.

Being a fan of Tom Petty I was naturally interested in this documentary. The thing that impressed me was how I lived all of this, listened, read, watched and yet didn't know so many details of the heights of success that Tom Petty and the band had reached. Even more interesting was the influences on him and that he has had on others in the industry. I've always been impressed with how the guy writes music that just keeps coming. In many ways like the Beatles albums, so many good songs, simple classic songs are on almost every album he works on with the heart-breakers, alone or in tandem with other artists. The adulation he receives from so many other stars like Stevie Nicks and George H. are just moving as to the dedication and talent he has. I just liked him before seeing this documentary, after I realize how ignorant I was of how good he truly is. Before I just liked so much of his music it was impressive, after I see that he has touched a lot more than me and just keeps on going. One of the few people I have seen on film where it seems like you could just walk up to him and shake his hand telling him how his music has touched your life and after all these years he would still truly appreciate the compliment and not just brush it off. Seems like a class guy and gotta love how he has effected the industry.

Runnin' Down a Dream is a great rock and roll documentary for anyone who likes rock and roll. If you like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, even better. As you watch it, you can see it was done with that purpose, and by people who share the love for great songs, electric guitars, kick ass solos, stunning drums: What rock and roll is all about.Even being big as it is (almost 4 hours long), the story isn't dragged around and when you realize it will be already over and you'll be wanting to see even more of the incredible story of this great band and especially Tom Petty, a singular creature in a world full of schmucks. You can see the great mojo that was cooked between the band along the years, the good and bad things that happened on the way to success, but you will mostly hear about the music, which is what many of documentaries of bands seem to put in the background. The director let Mike Campbell's guitar solos play until the end, unlike other documentaries that the solo is faded out. The worst thing in the world is to start hearing a great solo and have it cut in the best part. Anyway, it's a wonderful film, really impressed me. Go watch it!

The best rock documentary ever! The archival footage of concerts and especially recording sessions is precious! Dylan, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Roger McGuinn a pantheon of icons all interconnected to the story of TP! Peter Boganovich, did justice to the music and story by not editing this down to a theater friendly 90 minutes. The stories behind the songs were fascinating and I never realized or appreciated Tom's battles with the "industry". Like one of the interviewees commented, I too can remember where I was, what was going on in my life when a certain Tom Petty & Heartbreakers song was astaple of FM rock. 30 years; at the end I felt oh so old, wondering where did the time go?