Backbeat

Set amid the neon tawdriness of Hamburg and the working-class grime of Liverpool, BACKBEAT is about two friends, their band, and the woman who comes between them. The story is a cliche, but the band is the Beatles, and the friends are John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe--the real "fifth Beatle" who left the group before they became famous and then died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.

We first meet Lennon (Ian Hart) and his longtime friend and bandmate Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff) in a tough Liverpool nightclub, then follow them to Hamburg, where--with Paul (Gary Bakewell), George (Chris O'Neill), and drummer Pete Best (Scot Williams)--they play sleazy clubs and live ...