For many of us, finding an outlet for anger is difficult. I can only imagine that is has to be monumentally more difficult when the source of one’s anger played itself out in popular culture. Such was the well documented case for Conan O’Brien one year ago during his fallout with NBC. What happened next is truly telling about Conan’s character – he took all his anger and channeled it into something energetic, daring, and of course very funny.

CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP plays like a rock & roll road movie. Sure it might centre on a funnyman talking into a banana-phone instead of a guitarist proclaiming to be a golden god, but they’re cut from the same cloth. With nothing but time on his hands, Conan packs everything up and takes his schtick across North America in a tour that is warmly vindictive, insanely ambitious, and joyously amusing all at once.

The film begins as an interesting look at “the process” for Conan and his team. Following him and his people from room-to-room, we get our first real glimpse at how this self-depricating icon works, and likewise, how he relates to those who help him achieve what he has achieved since he was curiously pushed into the spotlight in 1993.

Where the film earns high marks is in how it doesn’t hold back on showing the toll the tour took on Conan. The project clearly takes him out of his element: what the live nightly performances don’t take out of him is greedily gobbled up by the post-show hoops that he has to jump through. Tasks like photo op’s and meet & greets clearly start to make Conan antsy, and the film doesn’t shy away from showing that frustration.

All the same, that frustration isn’t helped by the fact that we’re talking about a guy who seldom seems to want to say no. As the title declares, he can’t stop…even if it leaves him grumpy and weary. The guy marches straight up to the line that separates antsiness from bitterness, but knows enough not to take that one step further.

CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP is rock & roll. It mixes levity, adventure and angst and turns it into something poetic. Seeing O’Brien channel all of that anger and frustration into something so grand and positive is very telling about the sort of man he is – it also makes one selfishly hope that he never stops.

CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP plays Hot Docs once more – Monday May 2nd: 11am at The ROM.