Session Man (1991)

When the phone rings in the middle of the night, a voice tells a sleepy guitarist that the 'Raging Kings' need this 'McQueen' (James Remar) to rescue an expensive and fraught recording session. He duly turns up and pretty effortlessly manages to insert his improvised music into one of their songs. Indeed, they are so impressed with his skills that they ask him to replace the one of their number whose original strop caused the call in the first place. To be part of a band again, to tour, it is the stuff of his dreams but when their miscreant member shows up again, will the band stick to their offer? It has the look of an observational documentary to it, and it also suggests that much of the musical heavy lifting is really done by the flat-fee merchants who turn up and often relieve the creative constipation of bands who are allowing personality and irritability to clog things up. These actors look and sound the part, especially Remar and singer (Michael Harris) but it's too short to really develop it's themes beyond the simplistic and I could have done with a little more meat on it's bones. Worth half an hour, though.