Daily Loaf

When you strip away all the pomp and circumstance from rock ’n’ roll — the fashion and politics and drugs and groupies and stardom and burnout — what’s usually left is a few simple chords and a tune you can hum. In the 50-plus years since Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc. created an art form, rock ’n’ roll music has morphed from a powerful expression of freedom and rebellion into a multi-billion-dollar commodity to be packaged and sold by record company soul-suckers that view artists as cattle and the audience as ignorant rabble worthy only of being led around by the nose or dragged to court. It didn’t used to be this way.

The new film Pirate Radio remembers a time when the music was king. Well, OK, the music and a small handful of outlaw DJs floating just off the coast of Britain, pumping their pirate signal to millions of the Queen’s subjects while royally pissing off the authorities in the process. Pirate Radio isn’t a true story, per se, but elements of it are inspired by real events in 1960s Britain, when a legal loophole allowed unlicensed broadcasters to drop anchor within spitting distance of the mainland and thrill the masses with records by The Kinks, The Rolling Stones and The Who.

So, yeah, the film’s soundtrack is as killer as you’re imagining. But as a movie, Pirate Radio is less successful. A little background: Originally called The Boat That Rocked, the film had a running time of three hours before being trimmed by about a half hour for theatrical release in Britain. No matter; the UK press hammered it for being too long and muddled. For the American release, the filmmakers doubled down on their less-is-more strategy and stripped almost another half hour out. What’s left is an occasionally stirring, but largely unfocused and uneven film. Not knowing what the missing hour looks like, I have no way to know if all that editing was beneficial or not, but I suspect this is a murdered movie.

I say that because there’s so much to like here, even if most of it doesn’t quite add up. The great Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean) stars as Quentin, the always cool man in charge of Radio Rock, a floating rust-bucket staffed by a colorful cast of DJ scoundrels. Most notable are Philip Seymour Hoffman (the film’s big star from this side of the pond) as The Count, an American DJ who fills the anti-establishment, big-dog slot on the station, and Rhys Ifans as Gavin, a superstar jock who had left a few years ago for America but is brought back by the station for an extra ratings kick.

Then there’s Quentin’s godson, 18-year-old Young Carl (Tom Sturridge), who has been sent to live on the boat by his mother (Emma Thompson, lurking behind a large coat and sunglasses) as punishment for drinking and smoking back home. Quentin observantly calls this a “spectacular mistake” before patting the boy on the back and congratulating him on a job well done. Young Carl then goes through a fairly standard coming-of-age arc, including the usual befriending of the crew, losing his virginity and reconnecting with a certain long-lost family member.

I have yet to mention a half dozen other major characters, most notable Kenneth Branagh as the hissable Minister Dormandy, a stick-up-his-ass bureaucrat for whom shutting down Radio Rock is of the highest moral imperative. Branagh is very good, wearing an almost-Hitler ’stache and verbally cutting his subordinates every time things don’t go his way. With all these other characters, though, come multiple subplots — some good (Hoffman and Ifans climbing the ship’s mast in a game of chicken; Christmas dinner at Dormandy’s house), others less so (let’s just say the whole thing turns into Titanic without the grit).

I enjoyed much of Pirate Radio, but I can’t in good conscience recommend it. It’s too discombobulated, and there are far better movies out there about rock ’n’ roll. (For starters, check out the sublime Almost Famous.) I will look forward to the eventual expanded DVD edition of the film, though. There’s a great movie lurking in Pirate Radio somewhere; it’s just too bad the filmmakers never found it.

Posted in Movie Review, Movies | Leave a comment