TV Reviews : Garth Brooks Ropes a Special on NBC

More than a month before the first primary, we already have the definitive long-form campaign commercial. The only problem: The subject isn’t a candidate.

“This Is Garth Brooks,” an hourlong NBC special (at 9 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39), is a slick sales job, presenting a series of interviews that depict the Oklahoman as a man worthy of high office, if not sainthood. Fortunately, the dynamic concert footage that dominates the show deflates much of the bluster.

In some of the conversations, Brooks’ easy charm and spontaneity transcend the staginess. But in others he’s painfully sincere, like a philosophy-spouting young dad in one of those feel-good life insurance commercials (“Takin’ chances. . . . People say that’s why we’re where we are today”).

A chorus of praise is joined by band members, other associates and his wife, Sandy. Their respect may be well justified, but without an objective voice--never mind a critical or penetrating one--the testimonials become suffocating.

Ironically, a fuller, deeper, more genuine character emerges in the theatrical setting of the concert stage, where Brooks becomes a larger-than-life figure giving vent to a full range of emotions. The dominant strain may be celebration and release, but he lets you sense currents of doubt and darkness swirling around in there. Shots of fans’ intense reactions reveal a profound connection between Brooks’ music and the fabric of their lives.

And most rock stars would kill for concert coverage like this. Captured with both intimacy and swooping grandeur by director Bud Schaetzle and director of photography Toby Phillips (“Truth or Dare”), Brooks is a guitar-smashing, duck-walking, stage-dashing, self-drenching dynamo in the process of redefining the nature of country-music performance.

This is Garth Brooks. The rest of the show doesn’t add much to it.