Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Goingbegging This is a story of two people, not ten, as you might assume from the poster, which suggests a bio-pic of the Rolling Stones and their various rock-chicks. We are actually looking at the last few weeks of Brian Jones, the group's genuinely brilliant creator, whose colleagues had just fired him on the grounds that he was no longer fit to create anything, after plunging too deep into the debauchery of the 60's music scene. He would soon be found drowned in his pool, possibly at the hands of an unpaid builder, Frank Thorogood, resentful at living so near yet so far from the pop-star life.The murder theory is far from proved, and even then there is an alternative suspect in the Stones' chauffeur and minder Tom Keylock, who plays a menacing role in this film, while others claim that the asthmatic Jones had simply gone swimming while stoned out of his mind.It is the relationship between Jones and Thorogood that drives this story - the glamorous celebrity and the humble tradesman, dazzled and disoriented by the young groupies casually brushing past him with their mini-skirted thighs.To Thorogood, Jones is generous with his drugs and his girls ("Haven't you ever heard of free love?"), but relentlessly tight with money. He was in fact a small, narrow, mean character, as shown by the offhand way he ordered his first girlfriend to abort their baby. But by now he is overtaken by debt, having failed to deliver good songs for some time. And Thorogood's men are wanting their wages rather badly...Those of us with vivid memories of the 60's will pick up some too-obvious images of people smoking cigarettes in a theatrical way, so you don't miss the point, and a poster of the Black and White Minstrels, long since branded as non-PC. Also Thorogood's wife commenting on his new trendy long hairstyle. And a few contemporary song-hits (sung in cover-versions only).The scenes of drug-taking do not really touch a nerve among us non-druggies, and as for the free love, there is some weird camera direction, especially at a climactic point where one of the girls seems to be resisting group-sex, while a male voice shouts "Experiment with me!". The nature of the experiment remains obscure.Meanwhile the swimming pool is featured almost like a character in the story. Jones and Thorogood are seen lounging and drinking beside it. When it's empty, they even make a recording down there, with echo effects. And there is a ghostly reappearance of Jones, thanking Keylock (but not Thorogood, you notice) for making him a martyr. "If it wasn't for you, I'd still be alive and no one would care." For Jones had earned immortality as founder member of the 27 Club, commemorating rock-stars who die at that age, for which there is (supposedly) a statistical spike.As one of the rock-chicks remarks, showing an unexpected shaft of profundity, "Stonesville. A very strange place."

justincward 'Stoned' is a Brit docu-drama in the mould of 'Scandal' or even '10 Rillington Place' about the final weeks of Stones founder Brian Jones' life - and it purports to give the explanation of how a strong swimmer who had been coming off drugs drowned, when he shouldn't have.Good points: It's very low budget, but for all that never feels set-bound, and the main location is fantastic; the sixties feel is authentic, and the use of contemporary cameras to film the flashback scenes works. The feel of how Brian alienated himself from the band, and how he was both exploited by and dependent on hangers-on like Thorogood and Keylock is well expressed. I didn't find it boring because maybe I am aware of the background - 'Stoned' starts with a fair amount of exposition of who Jones actually was, which must be news to those who discovered the Stones after 'Angie'. The relationship between Jones and Thorogood is the key, and 'Stoned' makes this completely credible.Not so good points: I'm afraid that Leo Gregory never persuades me that he is the super-charismatic Cheltenham boy who founded the world's greatest rock'n'roll band. I kept thinking he was supposed to be Peter Frampton. Brian Jones was one of those people whose sexy, defenceless smile made people forgive him just about anything - Leo Gregory never captures the vulnerability or the extreme arrogance that would have driven Thorogood to murder. He seems to leave it to the script. I would also have liked more about how Thorogood allegedly 'confessed on his deathbed'. This is left as a footnote at the end, which kind of dilutes the fact that this was a big mystery at the time, and is actually the whole point of the film. It's what we want to know.If you like docu-dramas, 'Stoned' is an unusual one and definitely worth your time if you know anything about the early Stones. If you don't, it won't tell you much, and in that it falls short. I've given it a nine to balance the unreasonably low scores given elsewhere by Mick Jagger fans. It's an intelligent film, but not over-intelligent.

rowmorg The Rolling Stones ripped off the blues greats, and were just another example of white men ripping off black men, like Elvis and all the rest. I have no idea what contribution Brian Jones made to their tinny dance records, and I tended to agree with the outraged father of a fourteen year-old girl (depicted in an early scene) who said how much he despised him for getting her pregnant. Jones's despicable answer was that a doctor could do away with it. Way to go, Mr Wooley, set up your hero as a total tosser right from the get-go! Now we don't care about him at all, let's get on with the rest of the film, eh? There's no mystery about the pool death now, any more than there was in Sussex at the time: I was there. The guy was a decadent poltroon who had an asthma attack while swimming and accidentally drowned because he was hopelessly overweight and weak from chronic dypsomania. No one killed him, he killed himself, blatantly. Looking at the footage of the half-million attending the free concert for Brian held in Hyde Park, I wonder what got into everyone at the time. It must have been the very powerful sound systems that were coming in, and could reach big crowds and make more money than anyone had ever imagined. Give me Nora Jones instead of Brian Jones any time.

top_cio I was so disappointed by this movie! I mean... there are NO songs by the Rolling Stones in the movie that I (or anyone else I know) would recognize, Brian Jones never wrote any of their songs, and the Stones "members" might as well have been extras on the set for all the lines they got and acting opportunities received. All of that in itself makes the movie awful. But it gets worse, if possible. Unless you grew up in Cockney Town England, you're not going to understand a THING any of the actors say in the whole movie - they might as well have been speaking Japanese! Just a bunch of Blimey mumbling, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, and a stupid, twisted, pointless plot line that would probably have been more intelligible with the sound off. In fact, that's my advice to any future watchers - just turn the sound off and the movie won't seem quite so bad.This movie is a prime example of dollars wasted on a stupid theme, a stupid subject, a stupid premise (about the Rolling Stones, but no Stones are really present in the whole movie), and just stupid in general. If you've seen Oliver Stone's great movie "The Doors", and think this one is going to be the same kind of ride except about the Rolling Stones you are in for a grave, deep, and permanent letdown - buyer beware!