Runnin' on Empty: Lots of Details, Little Meaning in Tom Petty Documentary

The documentary includes most of the hallmarks of the genre: drug abuse, divorce, record-company problems (in Petty's case, a historic throwdown with MCA). Bogdanovich covers personnel changes in painstaking detail. Do we really need to hear current Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone recalling the day that Petty asked him to join the band on tour?

There are also the requisite rock-star testimonials, from the likes of Jackson Browne, Dave Grohl and Dave Stewart as well as George Harrison, who speaks from beyond the grave. Stevie Nicks says she would have quit Fleetwood Mac and joined the Heartbreakers if they'd invited her. Eddie Vedder says that "the first time you hear a Tom Petty song, it sounds like a classic."

There's an abundance of archival footage, including studio sessions and live performances on television and in concert halls. Lots of music. Plenty of images of Petty: smiling, brooding, strumming, singing. Petty on magazine covers. Petty dancing in a hotel room. Petty upbraiding a record company rep during a recording session with Roger McGuinn.

Petty, Petty, Petty, Petty.

In the beginning, we learn that he was obsessed with westerns and, in turn, liked guitars "because cowboys played the guitar." He was an Elvis fan. He decided, at the age of 13, when the Beatles performed on "Ed Sullivan," that his future would be in rock-and-roll. "It all became clear," he says. After 22 minutes, we're still in his home town of Gainesville, Fla. Only then does Petty head to Los Angeles in search of a record deal. And then he returns to Florida. And then he heads west again. It takes 41 minutes for Bogdanovich to get around to the release of "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers," the band's 1976 debut.

That's a lot of throat-clearing, and it doesn't even include the most interesting biographical morsels -- namely, that Petty's father was emotionally and physically abusive; and that his mother's death, not long after "Damn the Torpedoes" was released, rocked him. Much, much later, Petty allows that "the dangerous, shadowy figure of a dad and the sweet mom that left too early in your life, I think that gives you a certain drive. . . . I kind of turned that anger into ambition. There was an extreme rage in me."

But he also says that "when I'm in a good place emotionally, I seem to do the best music."

So confusing. If only Bogdanovich had more time, he might be able to clarify.

Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (four hours) airs tonight at 7 on the Sundance Channel.