When shooting commenced in 2001, Metallica — drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and singer James Hetfield — was starting a new album, dealing with the resignation of bassist Jason Newsted and entering therapy with performance-enhancement coach Phil Towle. With its record label, Elektra, the band hired Berlinger and co-director Bruce Sinofsky (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost) to document the process with an eye toward turning the footage into an infomercial. "You know, sell some albums on TV," says Hammett. "We had no f____ing idea what we were getting ourselves into."
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Things went spectacularly wrong — or right for the viewer — from Day One. For the first time in its history, the band entered the recording studio with no written material. The jam sessions are excruciating but not nearly as tough as watching the band members interact. "Back then, I didn't know how to deal with my anger," says Hetfield, 40, who does a fair impression of Stanley Kowalski during the first half of the movie. "I'd bottle it up and then explode on an easy target. Usually Lars." Ulrich, 40, an impish Dane, says, "I always felt it was my duty to be the one guy to stand up to James. So I'd press his buttons." Hammett, 41, shy and soft-spoken, would try to play the peacemaker. "I've always been monkey in the middle," he says.
Nothing, not even Towle and his $40,000-a-month fee, could prevent things from going nuclear. After one particularly brutal argument, Hetfield storms out of the studio and slams the door behind him. Without a word of explanation, he goes into rehab for alcohol addiction and does not return for 11 months. Ulrich and Hammett watch their ex-bassist's new band, Echobrain, and wonder if Metallica is washed up. Ulrich is vilified for taking on the band's file-swapping fans. And when Hetfield finally returns, he tries his best not to scowl at the cameras. "Every day I thought about telling [the directors] to turn the cameras off," says Hetfield now. "But I was trying to come back as this new person. A more open person. Also, I didn't want to let the band down. At a certain point it's like a dare, just to keep being open no matter who's watching."
Just as daring is the fact that when Elektra expressed doubts about the movie, Metallica bought out the label. "We showed the band footage," says Sinofsky, "and begged them, 'Trust us. You have something special here — and it's not an infomercial.'" Metallica wrote a check for $2 million, and shooting continued as the band hashed out its issues and recorded St. Anger, which became its fourth No. 1 album when it was released in June 2003. But what's most captivating about Monster is that the camera never looks away and Metallica never hides. Hetfield pouts. Ulrich luxuriates at a New York City auction house while one of his paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat sells for $5.5 million. Hammett is so indecisive that you wonder how he manages to pick a guitar chord. Even performance coach Towle, a middle-aged man in a series of Cosby-meets-Rorschach sweaters, throws a small fit when the subject of curtailing therapy finally arises. "Remember, these guys are our clients," says Berlinger. "And God's honest truth, they never gave us one vanity note — not a single instruction to take something out."