BLACK LIKE ME

Bring On The Night (A&M Films)

John Mendelssohn

Several years ago, in his infamous Outspoken Period, Elvis Costello allowed as how Sting ought to be cuffed mercilessly about the ears until he quit singing in a Jamaican accent. Presently, it�s his record company that�s in for a good cuffing for having bankrolled Bring On The Night.

Following Sting and his D/eam Of The Blue Turtles band from rehearsal hall (actually, chateau) to its first public performance, the film falls on its face on every level—it�s a disaster as a vicarious concert experience and fails, its star�s expectations notwithstanding, to illuminate how musicians somehow become more than the sum of themselves when they form a band.

But it sure does succeed in enhancing Sting�s image as The Thoughtful Rock Superstar. While the eminent (and, as jazz fans will tell you, woefully squandered) eminent young black jazzmen and embarrassingly sycophantic women singers who make up his band are interviewed in brilliant daylight, Sting himself speaks to u$, most warily, from deep in shadow. In what appears to be someone�s personal library, for Pete�s sake.