Nobody, unfortunately, is mildly likeable in "Stoned." The women move through the story like a Lady Macbeth hit parade, with little ability to keep their clothes on. As reigning man-eater Anita Pallenberg, Monet Mazur gives what amounts to a soft porn audition, with a specialty in S&M. Novatny mostly sneers and takes her shirt off.
When the men aren't scamming each other out of money, they're playing "wind up games." Jagger and Richards (Luke deWoolfson, Ben Whiteshaw), lurk in the shadows of the movie--both minor players, silently scheming buddies out to weasel Jones of the band he created, and to take away his women. DeWoolfson, Whiteshaw, and Gregory do have moments of dead-on impersonation of the rock stars, sometimes haunting in their ability to get a tick or gesture just right. On the flip side, there are just as many moments where they appear like trick-or-treaters going door to door and scene to scene with their wigs on, in painful imitation.
Leo Gregory hits some of the cruelty notes in his depiction of Brian, but Jones was as famous for his childlike vulnerability and charisma as he was for his mean streak, and in this arena, Gregory arrives without the goods. David Morrissey brings vibrancy to the role of Keylock, but he's written as a cliché--the fast-talking hustler. The one who comes closest to a sense of humanity is Considine as Thorogood. It is with the indictment of Thorogood that Stoned has its key problem: ethics. Thorogood was never charged or tried for a crime, and his deathbed confession was iffy--supposedly given to Keylock, who later recanted the story. If Stoned was true to basic Stones history in other regards, the Thorogood claim would be easier to buy, but there is much here that lacks accuracy. This runs the gamut from small stuff (fashion styles being period-incorrect in spots; the visual embodiment of Thorogood being off, as he was much more stereotypically "square"), to inaccuracies in key events depicted (including the famous trip to Morocco), and with the general Stones time-line. So much of the band's chronology is muddled that one can't help but ultimately wonder about the accuracy of the Thorogood issue.
With so many riffs on and rips off of other movies, Stoned also suffers from what amounts to a lack of a sense of self. The only thing that is missing here is Thorogood putting on Jones' blonde wig (as in the famous Fox/Jagger scene from Performance, and driving off into the horizon. In the end, with all the decadence and misogyny and creepiness, one comes away with a sense of emptiness--and a desire to push everyone on screen into the pool. By the time Thorogood does Brian in, you can't help but feel the guy had it coming.
