‘GIMME DANGER’

Cast: Iggy Pop, Ron Asheton, Mike Watt, Scott Asheton, Danny Fields, James Williamson (R), 1:48

Fans of Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop might think that “Gimme Danger,” the filmmaker’s documentary about Pop’s band the Stooges, will be a coolly ironic, formally daring homage to what Jarmusch flatly declares to be the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in history.

Instead, “Gimme Danger” is a relatively tame affair — which is probably to the good. In their prime — and, arguably, they’re still in it — the band’s musicians were so rough and ready to rumble that an attempt to make a film as risky as they were wouldn’t be just redundant; it would look unforgivably lame.

So Jarmusch takes the conventional route. Interviewing Iggy (a.k.a. Jim Osterberg) in an “undisclosed location” and catching up with as many surviving band members as he can, the director leads viewers on a detailed history of a group that was decades ahead of its time when it formed in 1967.

Ragged and untutored, the Stooges forged an aggressive, surprisingly sophisticated musical style based as much on the percussive stamping machines in the Midwest’s auto plants as on the free-form music of Harry Partch and John Cage.

“Gimme Danger” hews to a familiar outline: the scrappy, almost accidental beginning; the sharpening of chops while playing tiny gigs; discovery; success; drugs; dissolution. In the Stooges’ case, there are a few doglegs. Although commercially, they never hit it nearly as big as they deserved, since playing Coachella in 2003, they’ve enjoyed a miraculous rebirth as a vital force that’s anything but a geezer act.

On the cusp of 70, Iggy is as lithe and limber as ever, and in “Gimme Danger,” he emerges as exceptionally erudite and thoughtful as well. He’s especially insightful when describing the guitar work of James Williamson, who took the place of founding member David Alexander (who died in 1975, at just 27).

Iggy notes admiringly how he was forced to sing at least an octave higher “just to find musical space that James wasn’t occupying.” Williamson himself has a pretty amazing story line in “Gimme Danger” — and one of the film’s most startling visual makeovers. — Ann Hornaday Washington Post