David Letterman joins Bono and The Edge in a new documentary due to be released this weekend about U2 and soon one obvious question arises: What is David Letterman doing here?
The funny, bushy-bearded American comedian is an odd choice to emcee this project that debuts Friday on streaming service Disney+, unbalancing everything, even the title, “Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman.
Director Morgan Neville does a terrific job of using new interviews and including brilliant ideas from musician Glen Hansard and producer Jimmy Iovine, blending them with old performances as he explores the band’s origins, the making of their songs, the ups and downs. But there’s no telling if it’s a travel show or a music documentary, and neither works well.
The backbone of the film is a concert by Bono and The Edge at the Ambassador Theater in Dublin, Ireland, where they reveal some of the new stripped down and modified versions of their catalog for the new acoustic album “Songs of Surrender”, which includes songs like “Vertigo”, “Bad” and “One”.
But Letterman isn’t just distracting, he gets in the way. We see him wander around Dublin shopping with his weird and clueless sense of humor, as if the show is about him. “I am interested in a wheel of cheese. I have never bought a wheel of cheese,” he says.
There’s even a bizarre sequence where Bono draws a map of Ireland for his guest and unravels the complex history of the relationship between the Irish and the English. “Who I don’t like in this?” Letterman asks. The answer is Letterman. The documentary does do a great job of giving context to U2’s rise, including the social, religious and cultural changes that took place in Dublin in the late 1970s and 1980s, or as Bono puts it, “as that Ireland goes from black and white to colour”.
There are revelations, some small, like drummer Larry Mullen Jr.’s nickname as a child was “The Jam Jar,” and some big, like when Bono admits tensions within the band regarding his activism, and moments to celebrate, as his major Super Bowl halftime show after the 9/11 attacks on New York.
But then Letterman reappears, visiting polar swimmers or stopping at the recording studio. Bono and The Edge even write a goodbye song for him. But this does not contribute to the documentary.
Watching the film, you begin to realize how crucial The Edge is, and you can even hear him sing a few songs and tell the story of how he came up with “Sunday Bloody Sunday” while playing the chord on a guitar. Bono mentions how key his bandmate is, in a sweet way, live in concert.
“What I don’t like about Edge is that he doesn’t need me. He could be doing all of this (writing, singing, acting, playing, producing) on his own. But he doesn’t,” says Bono.
“Because it’s not that fun,” replies The Edge.
The only thing that ruins this special chemistry is not a bone of contention, but an American with a cheese.
“Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman,” a Disney+ premiere, is rated TV-14 in the United States for material that may be inappropriate for children under 14. Two and a half stars out of four.
