Director/writer Jim Jarmusch doesn't pull any punches in his Stooges documentary, Gimme Danger, calling the Ann Arbor group "the greatest rock and roll band ever" in the first two minutes. At this point, we don't need an endless stream of very important musicians and critics to testify to the Stooges' magnificence. However, we do need to know how these dudes from inauspicious circumstances seeded the soil for punk rock and other heavy musical developments. Gimme Danger dramatizes that story efficiently and vividly. Jarmusch opts for a frills-free approach that matches that of his subject's music. He keeps the focus mainly on Iggy Pop (aka James Osterberg), who's more lucid than you'd imagine for someone with his history of self-destructiveness. The singer who once regularly left the stage bloodied comports himself with dignity and offers hard-won wisdom throughout Gimme Danger, a powerful, if not totally raw, portrait of rock and roll's purest Dionysian spirit.

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