Early in Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary, It Might get Loud, Jack White (the boundary-pushing guitarist behind the The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather) states that he’s “always worried about becoming satisfied. When you become satisfied you die.”

His words work as a sort of mantra for himself and the other two guitarists – Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin founder and general god of the guitar) and The Edge (U2’s sage of the six-string and delay pedal enthusiast) – who are the subjects of the film.

Though it seems at first that the film is primarily about the meeting of these three very different musicians, the director is actually far more interested in the love each of them has for his instrument and the music he has created with it.

For this reason, the film spends a lot of time on background information, allowing us to get to know each of these musicians intimately. This in turn gives us an appreciation for where the music they’ve created comes from.

Unfortunately, when it comes time for the summit, it becomes obvious that each guitarist is far too polite to have the meeting become something really interesting.

It’s nice to see these men share stories, but considering the fact that the film works at setting up a tension throughout of The Edge’s punk sensibilities being a reaction against the bombast of Page and of White’s stripped-down aesthetic being a rejection of the technology-laden work of The Edge, one would expect a few more sparks to fly.

Instead, the scenes merely play out as pleasantly anticlimactic.

This is not necessarily a fault because it’s obvious that Guggenheim is not looking at only these three artists, but rather he’s interested in the way the guitar as an idea has been able to bridge the divide of genres and continually reinvent itself as a vital force in popular music.

By way of warning, you should know that if you are not a fan of these three musicians, or a die-hard guitar enthusiast, the film may fall a little flat.

This is ultimately a movie for a niche audience; however, the music is familiar and great, and the musicians chosen are quite interesting over and above their ground-breaking art.

Thanks go to Guggenheim, who could have chosen much worse and less intriguing guitarists to profile.

After all, you could be spending an hour-and-a-half with the guitarists from The Scorpions, Poison and Nickelback – and that’s a frightening thought.

Published in Volume 64, Number 13 of The Uniter (November 26, 2009)