W.A.R. (2008)

Back in the late '80s, Mick Wall was tight with William Axl Rose...until the journalist penned an unflattering story about the singer's beef with Mötley Crüe. Perhaps that's why W.A.R. is a mixed bag. Wall fleshes out his abbreviated reportage with heaps of previously published stories. Fortunately, there's still juice in familiar anecdotes about the Great Fallen Rock Star who eluded narcotic temptations, only to become intoxicated by his own ego. It's easy to paint Rose as a wrathful tyrant, but Wall has you sympathizing with his sad, middle-aged subject — and that's as big a revelation as any here. B–