Review: ‘Liam Gallagher: As It Was’ profiles post-Oasis rock star

Taken as is, “Liam Gallagher: As It Was” serves as a colorfully up-close-and-personal if somewhat airbrushed portrait of the notoriously arrogant and antagonistic Oasis frontman as a seemingly humbled if not quite contrite mature man.

With its release timed to coincide with this month’s release of Gallagher’s second solo album, “Why Me? Why Not,” the documentary can’t help but feel like a promo piece despite providing some insightful backstage glimpses into its subject’s well-publicized life.

Using the 2009 Oasis breakup as the logical starting point (the band went abruptly kaput after brother Noel, during one of their quarrels, stormed out of their Paris dressing room before showtime), directors Charlie Lightening and Gavin Fitzgerald find the then-35-year-old in a professional and personal fog.

Although he’d jump into forming another band, the shorter-lived Beady Eyes, his failed relationships, drug and alcohol issues and a tabloid press eager to broadcast every misstep would take a prolonged toll until the 2017 release of Gallagher’s first solo album, “As You Were,” which proved to be a critical and commercial success.

Despite his current resurgence, an observation is made by someone close to him that the driving force behind Gallagher’s sell-out performances might well be directed at an individual not in attendance — namely estranged brother Noel — is the sort of intriguing dynamic whose deeper analysis would have lent this marketing tool a sharper edge.