Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

Everybody knows that Leonard Cohen may just be the greatest songwriter of the last forty years, so the merits of a documentary telling us just that for ninety minutes are debatable. Various musical luminaries discuss his songs and his influence, while Cohen himself reveals details of his childhood, his early days as a beat poet and his time spent as a monk. Interspersed with this are cover performances by various artists, most of whom haven't even bothered to learn the songs by heart. Rufus and Martha Wainwright manage to get it right, but Nick Cave's karaoke renditions are faintly embarrassing. By the time Cohen gets on stage with U2 to sing Tower of Song, it's like the star who comes on at the end of X Factor to show everyone how it should be done. The insight is decent and the songs are for the ages, but too many of the performances will make you wish Cohen himself was singing them. [Paul Greenwood]