On the Record (2020) User Reviews

Whatever Your View...

[Xstal · 7/10 · 28 June 2020]

... on the quality of this film - it's unarguably important if it does nothing other than provide women the confidence to stand up and fight abuse and their abusers - if it does more all the better, if it results in prosecutions even better still.

Incredibly powerful and immediately important

[Sir_AmirSyarif · 7/10 · 1 June 2020]

Not only Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering's 'On the Record' is an absorbing, incredibly powerful documentary of one brave woman's fight to bring her abuser to justice, it also poses larger questions about the treatment of black women by the #MeToo movement, and exposes the pretty well-known culture of the music industry and its long history of misogyny - specifically the misogyny of hip-hop.

Ho strikes back

[kevin c · 6/10 · 11 July 2020]

Movie night with Iris.

#MeToo meets 90s Hip-Hop. This is less about the crime, but courageous Drew Dixon's (a former A&R executive with Def Jam Records) difficult decision whether to go "on the record" about being sexually assaulted by Russell Simmons.

The intersectional issues at play were the most interesting to me. The specific challenges black women face when they come forward against a black man, the fears that their allegations will play into white America's history of viewing black men as violent.

There is a clunky section focusing on the misogyny in hip-hop, and wider rock music. It's simplistic, adds little and feels tacked on.

The Black Harvey Weinstein

[EasternZZ · 10/10 · 28 May 2020]

Guilty as charge man, there is a reason why this guy ran off to Bali and refuse to return to the USA. He is guilty as charge boy, I tell you what. damn bro, why people gotta do this type of stuff man, makes me sick. Cosby, CK, WEINSTEIN, Spacey, now this dude.

Guilty as charge boy, guilty as charge!!

probably the hardest film for me to rate in a while...

[cjamesdueck · 4/10 · 29 May 2020]

Parts of this film were very interesting and thought provoking and yes, brutal. Other parts were eye-rollingly cheesy, and trying way to hard to wring emotion out of very un-special moments... Not entertaining, not very informative (other than a few great points). I think maybe though this will hit women harder- not because men don't care but because as much as we may want to understand and be supportive, it's not something we will directly feel in quite the same way... So as much as I wanted to like the film, it was overall pretty boring and really, I feel like this could've been an amazing 15 min doc. At 1 hr 35 min it just becomes way too much of a fluff piece about strong women, which isn't in itself a bad thing, it just doesn't make for a captivating full length documentary.

Was meh.

[shaynellebrown · 5/10 · 30 May 2020]

While I absolutely believe all of his accusers of Russell Simmons the documentary was just not that good. I'm not sure what it was but it didn't keep me interested I actually fell asleep on it. Maybe a different director would have done the stories more justice.

Black MeToo Documentary about Russell Simmons, the King of Hip Hop

[ligonlaw · 5/10 · 18 December 2020]

Russell Simmons was regarded as the king of Hip Hop and founder of Def Jam Recordings is the subject of sexual abuse allegations in this documentary. The allegations in this film were alleged to have taken place in the 1990s. The allegations are much like those directed at Harvey Weinstein who produced films at Miramax and, later, The Weinstein Company. The accounts of Simmons' acts of abuse and episodes of seduction are described in detail by several victims from the music and fashion businesses. This isn't a film one would "enjoy" because its purpose is to convey the pain and destruction experienced by the people in his destructive wake. The primary complainant is Sil Lai Abrams, an A & R person, who produced a number of major talents.