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Geoff Edgers likes The Kinks. I mean, really likes The Kinks. So much so that the Boston Globe reporter gave up two years of his life and (nearly) his sanity in a doomed attempt to convince the Brit Invasion rock band to get back together -- at least long enough for him to film it for this documentary.
I don't think I'm giving away much by saying that Edgers' struggle is ultimately a failure. Everyone tells him when he starts, and he himself acknowledges, that there's pretty much no chance of getting musically estranged brothers Ray and Dave Davies to perform together again.
Frankly, if he'd been successful, we would have heard about it already.
But "Do It Again" is as much about the crusader as the crusade. It's essentially a video diary of one man's determination to undertake an impossible quest, for more or less selfish reasons. As he works the phones and travels around interviewing people in an attempt to draw ever closer in the concentric circles of the Davies' acquaintances, it becomes apparent that the only person who really wants to see this thing happen is Edgers himself.
He's like Don Quixote without even the benefit of windmills.
It's a strange and off-putting notion, of a man making a movie about his attempt to make his rock 'n' roll dreams come true. The way Edgers totes along a guitar into every sit-down with well-known musicians like Sting and Peter Buck to request they play a Kinks song with him, one gets the sense that "Do It Again" is less a journalistic expedition for insight into rock 'n' legend and more one superfan's narcissistic desire to jam with his idols.
Ray and Dave Davies did, after all, perform together for more than 30 years. Dave, with whom Edgers does eventually score an interview, indicates that he would like to play again, but his long-held resentment toward his older brother for his tight-fisted control of the band, which he felt crimped his self-expression, is a permanent roadblock.
Dave cryptically offers to tell Edgers the reason why Ray must be the one to approach him, but only privately and off-camera. Our guide obliges without objection, which underlines the feeling that his endeavors are primarily for his own benefit rather than anyone watching this movie.
Ray remains more of a mystery figure, rebuffing Edgers' attempts to track him down, although we get a sense of him from talking to people who know him and from archival footage. The portrait is of a supremely self-confident artist who feels he said everything he wanted to say about The Kinks through their songs, and has nothing more to add.
Ironically, Edgers does track Ray Davies down in England at a performance by the "Kast Off Kinks" -- consisting of every musician who was ever a member of the band, minus the Davies brothers. Ray even performs the chorus of one of their songs, which Edgers is not allowed to film as a condition of being allowed in. (Others not so constrained provide footage.)
In this moment, Edgers actually achieved 90 percent of his mission -- every Kinks member but Dave Davies was up there on stage. But Edgers and director Robert Patton-Spruill don't even acknowledge how close they came. They seem more in love with chasing their white whale than actually harpooning him.
Still, the all-Kinks soundtrack is a blast, and I for one certainly share Edgers' opinion that The Kinks is perhaps the greatest rock band to have been mostly forgotten by the general public.
Edgers provides occasional snippets of his personal life. During filming, the Globe was threatened with shutdown if the union didn't agree to harsh concessions, and Edgers' wife frets about their family's financial state. There's also talk of feeling "stale" in his career, which those close to him think is code for mid-life crisis.
Even though Edgers comes across as something of a desperate, off-putting figure, I found myself actually wanting more of this personal stuff, since it would have helped paint a broader portrait of this guy and what drove him to undertake his Kinks quest. Ultimately, "Do It Again" is less about getting an old band back together and more about the guy trying to make it happen.
3 Yaps