aka Charlie Sheen sees the former Two and a Half Men star crack his knuckles while retelling some of his wildest stories. Photo: Netflix.
One thing Netflix does better than any other streaming service on the planet right now is documentaries.
Drive to Survive singlehandedly brought millions of fans to the sport of F1, Making a Murderer was an internet sensation, and even more recently, Unknown Number sent shivers down people’s spines.
The year Netflix’s biggest docu-series covers one of Hollywood’s most polarising figures, Charlie Sheen.
aka Charlie Sheen sees the man himself, now eight years sober, tell in excruciating detail, his story from the son of acting legend Martin Sheen, to his rise in Hollywood, his history with drugs, to his revival with Two and a Half Men, to his self-described rock bottom.
The two-part series, each running for around 90 minutes, is a bleak look into one of film’s brightest stars and what led to a heavily publicised descent into crippling drug use and other self-destructive behaviour.
Straight out of the gate, this series is hard to watch.
After seeing his father dealing with treatment following a heart attack on the set of Apocalypse Now, the series paints a picture that not everything was as sunny as the Sheen/Estevez family may have led you to believe at the time.
Charlie and his family, predominantly his father, Martin, and brother, Emilio Estevez, were the multigenerational talent of Hollywood, with combined successes including the aforementioned Apocalypse Now, The Badlands, The Breakfast Club, Platoon and Wall Street.
It propelled them into the stratosphere.
Unfortunately for Charlie, the use of marijuana and cocaine from a young age, as well as his non-stop party lifestyle, meant that even when he was sober, it wouldn’t take long for the ball to drop.
Now, I’m no Charlie Sheen aficionado. I wasn’t alive for nine of the 10 years of the 90s, and I was never allowed to watch Two and a Half Men, so everything I learn in this series was new and raw.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle to finish it.
This documentary isn’t a ‘woe is Charlie Sheen’ production, but more of a peek behind the curtains through stories and cameo appearances into just how wild his life became, most of which was due to his own actions.
Stories about a drunk Sheen piloting a passenger plane filled me with anger. His role in a prostitution ring in Hollywood made me question why I was even giving him the time of day by watching it.
One story centred around ice cubes made me sick to the stomach.
That was all just part one!
Once part two starts, all bets are off, and his life during and post Two and a Half Men gets put centre stage.
Charlie became the highest-paid TV actor of all time, allowing him to fund his vices more than ever. The 90-minute episode took me two days to watch due to the subject matter I was listening to.
It wasn’t just me feeling uncomfortable either; throughout the entire show, you can hear producers and interviewers groan or audibly gasp at the news they are learning. How the man isn’t in prison or dead is a mystery.
While aka Charlie Sheen isn’t essential viewing or even really entertaining, its pure shock factor is unlike anything else on TV right now. If proof of what was being said weren’t shown first-hand, it would be impossible to believe what went on, and for that, I guess the series justifies its existence.
Both parts of aka Charlie Sheen are now streaming on Netflix.
