"Pirate Radio" is the high-spirited story of how eight DJs' love affair with rock 'n' roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s, this group of rogue DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing rock 'n' roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down. The band of rebels is lead by The Count, Quentin the boss of Radio Rock, Gavin the greatest DJ in Britain, Midnight Mark, Doctor Dave and Young Carl who comes of age amidst the chaos of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. The film features an unbelievable selection of music including The Beatles, The Stones, Beach Boys, Dusty Springfield, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, David Bowie, Otis Redding, Cat Stevens just to name a few. The film is laugh out loud funny and speaks to the rock 'n' roll rebel in all of us.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh
Director(s)
Richard Curtis
Producer(s)
Hilary Bevan Jones
Writer(s)
Richard Curtis
Studio(s)
Focus Features
Hollywood Review:
As the British Invasion stormed American airwaves in the mid-'60s, its conquest of its native land took the shape of a sea-based guerrilla offensive. Broadcasting from ships anchored just outside British territorial waters, a handful of so-called "pirate radio" stations defied the BBC's strict limits on popular music by blasting the isles with around-the-clock rock 'n' roll. Writer/director Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually) pays tribute to that vibrant era with Pirate Radio, a sentimental, lighthearted ode to the renegade DJs who helped British rock find its sea legs.
Curtis introduces us to Pirate Radio's motley ensemble through the bright eyes of Carl (Tom Sturridge), a naive schoolboy whose godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy, playing perhaps the hippest sexagenarian in history), owns and operates Radio Rock, Britain's premier pirate station. Surrounded by a crew of boisterous, impossibly well-dressed musical misfits ? all of whom are seemingly modeled after various '60s countercultural archetypes (the mod hipster, the impish lothario, the uncompromising purist, the dazed hippie, the Jim Morrison clone, etc.) ? Carl's unusual voyage of discovery commences in earnest.
Pirate Radio may strike some as reminiscent of another nostalgic paean to the wonders of rock 'n' roll, Almost Famous ? not least because star Philip Seymour Hoffman essentially resuscitates his Lester Bangs performance in this film. But Pirate Radio is far less ambitious than Cameron Crowe's 2000 film, not seeking so much to define an era as to use it as the backdrop for a brisk, buoyant comedy. And in that regard, it succeeds far more often than it fails, thanks largely to the efforts of a talented cast led by Hoffman, Nighy, Nick Frost and Rhys Darby. There are a few bittersweet moments scattered throughout Pirate Radio, but at its core the film is a comic coming-of-age story ? punctuated by a lively soundtrack loaded with classics from the Who, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones and other seminal bands.
It should be noted that a significantly longer version of the film, titled The Boat That Rocked, debuted in the UK over six months ago. Narrative gaps are evident throughout Pirate Radio, but director Curtis' decision to pare nearly 20 minutes off the film's running time for its American release looks like a wise one, as the shortened length still tests the limits of one's patience. Rock 'n' roll can be many things, but it must never, ever be boring.
