‘Man on the Run’ review: An essential look at how Paul McCartney got his Wings

“Wings. They’re only the band The Beatles could’ve been,” Alan Partridge once famously remarked.

While that assessment might be a tad wide of the mark, Man on the Run does one hell of a job in offering a comprehensive look at Paul McCartney‘s post-Fabs life and the sizeable struggles he *did* encounter on the way to making Wings an almighty and enduring success in their own right.

Directed by Oscar-winner Morgan Neville, it traces the period from the end of The Beatles in 1969 right up to the end of Wings in 1981, shortly after John Lennon’s murder. Talking heads typical of the genre are wisely eschewed for rich archival footage, with the voice of Macca and other eclectic contributors – including Mick Jagger and his late Wings bandmate Denny Laine – featuring throughout.

It means that we’re instead afforded a deeply personal look at those ten years, where the footage is allowed to largely speak for itself. We see Paul adjusting to life on the Scottish farm where he retreated with his young family after The Beatles called it a day and the blame for the split, as it transpires, was wrongly placed on his shoulders.

The man himself also spoke at a screening last night about the joy of seeing his late wife Linda rightfully presented as a creative force of nature. She’s seen as the backbone of their young family, but also as a key creative sage who consistently sticks by Paul’s side through some of Wings’ misguided and, in retrospect, hilarious moments.

This includes performance footage of the band’s, err, interesting, 1972 hit ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, with then-guitarist Henry McCullough barely hiding his disdain at the bizarre song. Equally hilarious is footage of McCartney’s 1972 arrest for growing weed at his Scottish farm. The man’s dead-pan, faux contrition when faced by the press is one of the film’s true highlights. It’s testament to Neville’s vision that they made the final cut.

But by the time you see the band in full flight performing ‘Live and Let Die’ at Madison Square Garden, it’s clear that, eventually, Wings were the success that McCartney had always envisaged them being. It may have took some time, as this documentary shows in admirably honest detail, It’s the story of a man on the run from the greatest band of the all time, but eventually heading in the direction of another almighty success. McCartney fans will lap it up.