E-Mail This Article to a Friend JUST AN AMERICAN BOY

As fans of outspoken singer-songwriter and alterna-country living legend Steve Earle already know, the subject of this rockumentary from Amos Poe is anything but just an American boy. Of course, from Earle’s perspective, the title could as easily refer to John Walker, the subject of the controversial "John Walker Blues" number on Jerusalem. As Earle goes to great lengths to explain, on talk shows and in other interview footage here, the point of the song was to try to figure out what would make just another American boy join forces with the Taliban. And underlying that is Earle’s belief that we have serious problems in this country, from the death penalty, which he’s passionately opposed to, to the strip-mall lifestyle that alienates so many suburban teens. You could see Just an American Boy as a political-campaign film: Poe shoots Earle performing at everything from huge concerts to bluegrass picnics, captures his subject expounding on his view of what might make American a better, more tolerant place, and largely avoids the kind of long performance sequences that define the rockumentary. Rather profiling his subject’s life and times (from his start as Nashville’s great rock hope to a debilitating drug addiction that landed him in jail to an amazing comeback that’s made him an alterna-rock poster boy), Poe focuses on the attacks Earle endured after the release of Jerusalem. By the end, despite his criminal record, you’re left wondering whether America wouldn’t be a better place if Steve Earle were running for office instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger. (95 minutes) In the Coolidge Corner screening room.