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Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll on the sea.
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh. Directed by Richard Curtis.
File this one under “Love Letter to a Time I Never Knew,” and for what it's worth it's not a bad love letter.
I was born in 1977. For you fellow movie geeks/nerds it's the year that gave us the movies, “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Smokey and the Bandit.” For the music geek/nerds, we got “Low,” by David Bowie, “News of the World,” by Queen, and “Rumors,” by Fleetwood Mac. While several good albums have been released since then they're nothing compared to the raw, fundamental power of rock in its infancy. Huey Lewis, Bryan Adams, the Eurhymics, Stone Temple Pilots, Creed, No Doubt, or any other band post-1980 have nothing on the Kinks, Beatles, Rolling Stones, or the Who.
Richard Curtis gives us this look back at 1967 when rock music was as popular as it was controversial. It's difficult now to imagine a time before the “same 8 classic rock songs by the same 8 classic rock artists” existed, but Curtis peels back the layers of the years preferring to showcase the party atmosphere of the music before it became the current staple of what parents/grandparents listen to in order to remind them of their early years.
The movie is loosely-based on the real Radio Caroline, a network of ships off the coast of England that broadcast rock music 24/7. Go ahead and Wiki it. The British Government deemed rock music too immoral and commercialized to play for more than one hour a day so rock music DJ's became high seas Robin Hoods, bringing the music banned from on high to the Brit populace.
The commander on this journey is The Count (Hoffman), a famed broadcaster from the States who is the High Priest of the Airwaves with rock as his religion. His consul is Quentin (Nighy), his liaison with legality as well as the ship's crew. The rest of the crew include News John (William Adamsdale) who lives for news breaks, Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke) who earns his nickname for not picking up the obvious, the quiet romantic Midnight Mark (Tom Wisdom), the comedic Angus (Rhys Darby), Doctor Dave (Frost), late night/early morning show Bob (Ralph Brown), Simon (Chris O'Dowd), and Felicity (Katherine Parkinson), the resident lesbian. These are the broadcasters of Radio Rock.
Meanwhile, back on the island, the Prime Minister (Stephen Moore) wants the problem pirate rock station looked into and dealt with. This falls under the jurisdiction of Sir Alistair Dormandy (Branagh). Dormandy promises that within twelve months, there will be no more Radio Rock. He then hires assistant Twatt (Jack Davenport) to find ways to make the pirate station illegal and shut it down, or else. His assistant Miss C (Sinead Matthews) is given the charge of transcribing everything she hears from the broadcasts.
Enter Carl (Tom Sturridge). His mother Charlotte (Thompson) sent him to the boat in order for him to get his life straight. NOTE: Yes, this is cliché. What mother sends her son, who is in trouble with school for various reasons, to spend time in a place known for sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Does this really happen? Anyway, Carl is the godson of Quentin, who does his best to help Carl become “one of the gang.” Carl is there not only to find a sense of purpose, but to get laid and possibly find his real father whom he has never known.
The movie plays fast and loose with the structure as much as it does with the facts. It feels like a 2-hour party. Events occur inside and out of the music being played: the Kinks, Stones, Who, Turtles, Beach Boys, Hollies, Box Tops, etc.
As I noted earlier, this is a love letter to 60's rock music; a waxing nostalgic ode to youth rebellion via music. While it may never hold the gravitas as a movie like, “Almost Famous,” it's not a bad way to spend a few hours. This is loose collection of stories movie and as such, most of the actors have to have an even-keel against the others. There are intersections of relations and relationships; all is fair in love and music (but it doesn't feel that way at the time).The overall message seems to be “relationships and events in life come and go, but music is forever.” Maybe that's something that should have been in the script...
Hoffman one-ups Jack Black in the fact that he now has 2 rock music movies under his belt (Hoffman also played rock music critic Lester Bangs in “Almost Famous”) as opposed to Jack Black's “School of Rock.” This is Bill Nighy's second rock music movie (anyone remember “Still Crazy?”) and his third with Nick Frost, who it's nice to see outside of his Pegg/Wright/Frost trio movies.
My only real complaint in the movie was that I felt different rock songs needed to be played. I enjoy the Kinks' “All Day and All of the Night,” but you really only need to play it once. I had the feeling that the money spent on music went to playing everything they could out of the songs, although I did get to hear a few songs I had never heard before.
So, should you see this movie? If you enjoy Sixties-related fare, yes. It's better than most weekend afternoon cable TV fare. It's worthy of matinee pricing at least. It plays for fun rather than drama and it's better than I remember “Still Crazy” to be, but it's no “Almost Famous.”
Watch for Bond girl Gemma Arterton as a groupie and January Jones as the woman who marries and divorces Simon within 17 hours. For those of you who watch “The IT Crowd,” Katherine Parkinson (Jen) and Chris O'Dowd (Roy) are in it.
NOTE: This was originally titled, “The Boat That Rocked,” and had a runtime of 135 mins. It was re-cut and given the current title, “Pirate Radio.”
My grade: B
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