So, after the fiasco that was 1967's Magical Mystery Tour, Paul McCartney must have learned his lesson about trying to make films with little input or help from anyone else, right?

We WISH.

About twenty years after his first try, not-yet-Sir Paul made this vanity project that was presented as "a day in the life of Paul McCartney". The plot of this movie, such as it is, involves the master tapes of Paul's latest album going missing--tapes he'd entrusted to an ex-con he'd hired. If those tapes aren't found by midnight, A Big Evil Corporation will take over the recording studio. (I'm not sure HOW that works legally, but there you go.)

So Paul and his associates (which include his wife Linda and Ringo Starr) respond to this by...making videos and doing rehearsals. That's most of what happens in this thing...one video after another, with the movie only occasionally remembering to return to the plot. Paul seemed to intend this as a latter-day "Hard Day's Night," but it had none of the wit or genuineness that made AHDN so memorable and good.

There are some saving graces to the movie. The new arrangements of some of the old Beatle classics are good--especially "Eleanor Rigby" with an expanded instrumental section. The accompanying "Eleanor's Dream" sequence is beautifully filmed. That same sequence has some unexpectedly poignant moments--a shot of Linda McCartney's ghost riding horseback in the clouds (Harsher in Hindsight if you remember Paul's last words to Linda) and a sequence where Paul sees his friend Harry stabbed to death in front of a beautiful old building (what other friend of Paul's got murdered in the shadow of a grand building?). And there's a scene where Paul visits an elderly man named Jim for help--Paul's beloved father Jim McCartney had died shortly before the movie was filmed.

The biggest saving grace, of course, is the song "No More Lonely Nights," a radio hit and the most successful thing to come out of the movie.

But none of these touches can save a movie made by a man who really didn't know much about scriptwriting. As a vanity project, it might not QUITE be "The Room" with Paul McCartney songs, but it's excellent riffing material.