Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

Superbly crafted documentary is strong enough to make believers out of non-metalheads, and inside enough to get the devil's-horns salute from the most diehard followers.

It'll make you want to dig out your Whitesnake T-shirt. It might even convince Tipper Gore that heavy metal thunder is all in good fun.

At once playful and thorough, the documentary is also stacked teased-hair high with wicked performance footage.

Metal culture is a giant topic, and Dunn has made an ambitious stab at it, exploring the music's social, religious, and sexual implications.

Dunn says he's been defending his choice in music since he was 12, and the film is a carefully organized and thoughtful argument for the merits of metal.

A documentary that preaches to the converted if ever there was one, but Dunn's enthusiasm for the subject and the range of pretension and humour of his interviewees makes for fun viewing.

Mr. Dunn and his colleagues dig up some interesting information during their inquiry, like the origins of the devil-horns hand signal, metal's signature salute, but their insider love of the music finally proves as big an obstacle to the film as their ploddingly pedagogic approach.