Review: Paul McCartney – Man on the Run

Ask the average person about Paul McCartney’s exploits in the 1970s and you’ll likely get a response that includes references to Band on the Run, ‘Live and Let Die’, ‘Mull of Kintyre’ (if they’re British) and perhaps one or two of Wings’ hit singles such as ‘With A Little Luck’ or ‘Let ‘Em In’. That is likely to be about it. Whereas Macca diehards (guilty as charged) can probably tell you when all the various albums came out, who played on them, whether they were ‘Wings’ records or not (three weren’t) and where in the world Paul recorded them (he liked to travel).

Because of this, McCartney fans are likely to enjoy Morgan Neville’s new documentary film Man on the Run significantly less than casual viewers, simply because the story is so much more familiar to them. It’s one that has been told, in serial form, in the Archive Collection deluxe editions of the eight Wings/McCartney albums released between 1970 and 1979. The story has also been told before as a documentary film, by McCartney himself, in 2001’s Wingspan and most recently in Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair’s two outstanding McCartney Legacy volumes.

That’s not to say Man on the Run is not an enjoyable watch, but this endeavour is definitely aimed at the fan who has a passing interest and the barrier to entry is appropriately low, since apart from a short run in cinemas (as a “theatrical event”) – you’ll be able to stream this on Amazon Prime at the end of this month.

Neville’s film uses archive footage extensively, including plenty of Paul’s home video, to tell the story of how McCartney managed to ‘do it all again’ after the exhausting, creative intensity of The Beatles’ achievements in the 1960s. Paul is our main narrator (using new interviews) but is joined by a series of other voices, who sometimes offer an alternative (or even contradictory) viewpoint and occasionally put events in some historical context. These include various members of Wings, brother Mike ‘McGear’ McCartney, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, Mick Jagger, Nick Lowe, journalist and writer Peter Doggett, Chris Thomas (who co-produced 1979’s Back to the Egg), Chrissie Hynde, Sean Ono Lennon and a number of others. Some of these interviews may be old, simply because the person in question is no longer with us, and no one – including Paul – is shown on camera as a ‘talking head’; everything is narration: audio played over the footage. 

Neville is a great filmmaker (his 2024 film STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces was excellent and moving) and there’s a bounce to how this story is told, with relatively fast-paced cutting and cool graphics where visuals are occasionally layered atop one another and our protagonist is cut from one scene and walks across into another. It’s visually appealing and often set to musical cues that are unfamiliar (an instrumental version of ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’, or a demo of ‘Silly Love Songs’).

Our story starts as The Beatles split and the usual ground is covered about how John broke up the group but “didn’t tell anyone”, only for Paul to get the blame when he acknowledged that him and John were unlikely to work together again in his notorious McCartney press release (footage of someone literally handing these out to the press outside 3 Savile Row is just one of many fascinating film clips). McCartney retreats to Scotland, wonders if he’ll ever write another song again and hits the booze for a while, but has new wife Linda around to keep him grounded, as well as the remote setting of the farm and a load of sheep! But Paul eventually gets a grip and flies off to New York in October 1970 to record what will become the Ram album.

Ram is not particularly well received at the time (Sean Ono Lennon calls it a masterpiece in the film) and Paul returns to the UK to start Wings, with Linda in the band, along with Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell. The critics aren’t particularly impressed with the first album, Wild Life, nor its follow-up, Red Rose Speedway (Henry McCullough has joined by this point) but the chart-topping global smash Band on the Run restores Paul’s reputation and for the next few years Wings go from slightly shambolic embryonic band playing at UK Universities (for a 50p entry fee) and hippy-like outfit touring Europe in an open top bus, to all conquering rock stars traversing North America on a private jet with their gear being transported in three massive trucks each with ‘WINGS’, ‘OVER’, and ‘AMERICA’ painted respectively on their roofs.

Although ‘Mull of Kintyre’ becomes the biggest selling British single of all time in 1977 (and remains the best selling non-charity single in the UK to this day) there’s a slight ‘rise and fall’ element to the tale as the later albums aren’t as successful, Wings pause touring (Linda becomes pregnant with James), Paul gets busted in Japan and John Lennon is murdered in December 1980. The film ends with the video to ‘Coming Up’, signifying the dawn of a new era.

Paul comes across as his usual affable self in his narration but crucially he doesn’t deviate from the well worn anecdotes and tropes that McCartney fans will be so familiar with. The wheels of his carriage stay firmly in the rutted grooves of the story and don’t attempt to take an alternative path or offer new perspectives. In the darker periods, such as just after The Beatles break-up; when he has to sue his bandmates; the mess of dealing with Allen Klein; and the heartache of John being killed; there’s still a feeling of Paul not fully opening up, hidden layers unexplored. Are we getting the publicly accepted version of what happened, reiterated in film, or is that simply what happened? In the film, Paul says once again that he’s pleased he “made up” with John, but we’re none the wiser on exactly when they last met and the true nature of their relationship at that time. Only Paul can really tell us that and this was his opportunity. Sean Ono Lennon is one of the best contributors and is quite insightful on Paul’s infamous “it’s a drag” reaction to John’s murder, when he has a microphone shoved under his nose on 9 December 1980, upon leaving Air Studios in Central London’s Oxford Circus. 

The jeopardy sometimes feels overplayed for the sake of the narrative. By 1970, as well as his incredible contribution to The Beatles, Paul had written songs for other artists, composed a film score (The Family Way) so credibility is somewhat stretched if we are supposed to believe that McCartney wasn’t sure if he could do it on his own. And the timeline doesn’t suggest a man lost in a spiral of self-doubt and off his head on booze. He was still recording with George and Ringo in January 1970, his McCartney album came out in April, Let it Be was released in May and five months after that Paul was in New York auditioning musicians for Ram. 

To Paul’s credit, the film is not a whitewash of his views and opinions. Just before the band jet off to Lagos to record Band on the Run, Denny Seiwell and Henry McCullough say they are not going and in fact tell McCartney that they are leaving the band. In commentary, Seiwell states that they were being paid a pittance (something he told SDE a few years ago) and McCullough points out incredulously that two members of the band left and Paul didn’t think to ask why. McCartney doesn’t take this opportunity to say that he regrets not being more generous, instead he tries to defend this treatment, offering a weak line about “not working in accounts”, which is McCartney playing the innocent bandleader unaware how these things work, rather than the canny musician, building a publishing empire with the help of his father-in-law and brother-in-law.

Nick Lowe, who supported Wings on an early tour, speaks positively of witnessing Paul under the spotlight but later criticises the single ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’. When it’s mentioned by someone in the narration that rock music is supposed to be about danger, rebellion and protest, and that Paul was far too homely and middle-of-the-road, McCartney says defensively that “not everyone wants to do that or can do that” (anyone who’s heard ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ might agree).

Paul does say that he thought the Wings Over America line-up was the best version of Wings, which is something I can’t recall him saying before and he acknowledges that he was “an idiot” for the bust in Japan (although I don’t really buy his self-sabotage theories). Chrissie Hynde probably offers the best insight of the whole film, when she asks out loud if a person really changes when they become as famous as Paul McCartney. She concludes the person stays the same but the world changes around you, the implication being that this may well amount to the same thing. 

To be fair, it’s not really Morgan Neville or Paul McCartney’s fault if the viewer is already very familiar with the story being told and they could quite reasonably point out that the facts are the facts and how Paul remembers it is totally legitimate and consistent with previous accounts. The documentary is full of very rare and sometimes unseen footage including Wings rehearsals in February 1972 at the ICA in London and again in 1980 for the tour of Japan that never happened (Paul reminds everyone how ‘With A Little Luck’ goes). I was amused to spotted Paul with his family, in what was probably 1987, wearing a promotional T-shirt with the artwork to his 1986 single ‘Press’ on the front of it. 

For the casual viewer Man on the Run is a blast, powering through the 1970s with the same purpose and vigour that Paul McCartney himself did, back in the day. Its two hour running time zips by and it paints the ups and downs of the era in broad brushstrokes. It’s not a meditation on fame, it doesn’t seriously explore what Paul lost by not having the foil of Lennon as a writing partner and neither is it really much of a redemption story, since Paul was a millionaire rock star in the 1960s and remained one in the 1970s. Ironically, it’s much like your average Wings album: great fun, some definite highlights but you’re left with a niggling feeling that it lacks depth and could have been so much better. For uber fans and Macca students, The McCartney Legacy books remain the definitive account of this era.

Paul McCartney: Man on the Run is available to view in cinemas for a limited period from 20 February 2026 and will stream on Amazon Prime from 27 February.