Dokken: Unchain the Night

UNCHAIN THE NIGHT - DVD Movie

Dokken: Unchain the Night includes a cluster of music videos augmented by footage of the heavy metal group on tour a couple decades back, all of which comprised the band’s 1986 home video, Unchain the Night. There’s also a handful of extra videos and an entertaining, 2006 interview with Don Dokken and Mick Brown as they recall funny anecdotes from glory days. In fact, almost everything about the 1986 production, including the music performances and videos, is obsessed with touring: the sacrifices, the loneliness, the madness of it all. There are exceptions, such as "Into the Fire," with its wintry, romantic look, but most of what’s here is more like the unsettling "The Hunter," which presents the image of a touring rocker as a lone wolf, looking for sanctuary but dogged and captured by malevolent forces. "Break the Chains" is partially shot in a crazy, long hallway with the band banging into lanterns, but then weirdly includes the super-imposed image of a girl quoting from a letter the song denounces as insincere. "Alone Again" is another of those between-gigs visions of woeful isolation on the road. It all would be wearing if it weren’t for the obvious wit and intelligence of Dokken and Brown, both then and now. New videos include the interesting "Heaven Sent," which has a certain dream logic to it. --Tom Keogh