Brittany Sims
“The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story” originally premiered at SXSW Film Festival on March 13th. Now premiering on Youtube Premium for the world to see, this documentary features “the story of Lou Pearlman, his remarkable successes and offenses, and his tragic end while serving a 25-year prison sentence for multiple felony convictions.”
Members of multi-platinum selling bands like *NSYNC (Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez), Backstreet Boys (AJ McLean), O-Town (Ashley Parker Angel), Take 5, and 90’s singer, Aaron Carter, tell about the dark side of the music industry and working with Pearlman.
The film is produced by *NSYNC’s Lance Bass and gives major nostalgia to the 90’s boy band fans while capturing the tough times they went through.
Right away, viewers are thrown into that time in their lives where 90’s boy bands took over their entire life. From performances to origin stories, to the rise of the boy band craze, the beginning of this documentary draws you in and takes everyone back to those wonderful memories.
Talking to many references like former boy band members and their parents, lawyers, childhood friends, managers, and many others allowed the story to be intimate and personal while also offering varying opinions.
After explaining the boy band craze, it went into Pearlman’s life and what others thought of him.
Pearlman handled a lot of money. Along with managing bands, he also started a company called Transcontinental Airways, in which a lot of people invested. In the end, those people lost all of the money they entrusted to Pearlman.
Along with robbing many people of their money, Pearlman was accused of being handsy with some of his clients. O-Town’s Ashley Parker Angel said that Pearlman would rub his shoulders while telling him this would pump up his muscles. She also recorded a member of the girl band Innosense in a tanning bed and showed the video to others.
Pearlman was sentenced to a 25-year sentence for conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding in 2008. He never got to serve the full sentence due to his death in 2016.
This documentary explained the monster that Lou Pearlman was in a classy way. Experiences and the truth were told without blowing the whole thing out of proportion.
Overall, this documentary had us hooked from beginning to end and makes us want to pay back the boys all the money they lost.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
