Energetic Radio Skips a Bright Fandango
In 1966 Great Britain banned the playing of Rock and Roll on its nation’s radio stations. To battle this decision, stations like Radio Rock sprung up beaming the outlawed music 24/7 into millions of homes by broadcasting from seafaring vessels anchored in the North Sea outside of the government’s jurisdiction.
Tom Sturridge and Talulah Riley in Focus Features' Pirate Radio
Into the midst of music and mayhem comes young Carl (Tom Sturridge), the sprightly and wide-eyed godson of Radio Rock owner and ship’s captain Quentin (Bill Nighy) the boy unsure of exactly what sort of debauchery he’s walking in on. But unbeknownst to all aboard the vessel British government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) has made it his mission to take pirate radio off of the airwaves, the coming war one, not even brash and wildly out of control American deejay The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), none of them are likely to survive.
Pirate Radio, previously known as The Boat that Rocked, is a sprightly and exuberantly fun ride that’s pretty easy to like. Filled with a cast of irregulars played by some of the best Brit character actors around (including Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, Jack Davenport, Gemma Arterton, January Jones, Tom Sturridge and the great Emma Thompson), the movie is a raucous easygoing treat infused with an energy and a spirit that at times is fairly wondrous. Writer and director Richard Curtis (Love Actually) takes recent British history and attempts to spin it on its ear, and while he’s not always successful like the music he’s celebrating even when things go wrong they still end up feeling oh-so right.
What works best are the moments when the film gets as haphazard and as chaotic as Rock and Roll itself. There is a devil-may-care quality to the vignettes focusing on the deejays and their shipboard lives that’s extremely endearing, and just the sight of Hoffman and Ifans squaring off atop a yardarm is enough to bring a massive smile to my face I never thought would disappear.
On the other hand, at almost two hours (and apparently significantly trimmed from its original U.K. release) the movie still feels a bit padded. As much as I always love watching Branagh chew scenery playing yet another pompous political windbag none of his scenes are altogether necessary. It is almost as if Curtis felt like he had to have a flesh and blood villain when in reality there’s no need for one, the beginning crawl enough to let viewers know the weightiness of the situation.
I’m also not entirely certain bubbling everything within a teenage coming of age story involving a boy trying to learn the identity of his father (as well as hoping to pop his virgin cherry) was the right thing to do. I liked Sturridge, felt he handled his scenes more than adequately, I just didn’t really care for his storyline, and as it ends up being the central one that’s a bit of a problem I had some trouble overcoming.
Still, while not quite as anarchic as its music, Pirate Radio gave me lots to revel in. Small scenes between Frost and Sturridge – especially a mostly naked bit in a cramped bathroom – nearly made me laugh out loud, while just the raise of an eyebrow or the cock of a shoulder from Nighy was enough to make me giggle incessantly. Thompson’s cameo is a stunner, while Talulah Riley’s brief bit as Quentin’s sexy young niece Marianne was enough to take my breath clean away.
As for the cast as a whole, all are good but to say they’re stretching all would be an overstatement. The simple truth is that all are playing the characters you expect them to and doing it with the proper amount of energizing respect for the material you’d hope they would. While certain scenes do standout none of the actors do on their own, this mutual appreciation allowing for the entire ensemble to take center stage in a way that's colletively fabulous if individually underwhelming.
It’s curious that it has been six years since Curtis has stepped back behind the camera as a director. From a purely technical perspective, the filmmaker does a great job of getting solid performances from his cast and he always surrounds himself with crewmembers working near the top of their respective games. In this case editor Emma E. Hickox (The Edge of Love) should be particularly commended, her work so seamless even the bits I didn’t care for fit with the rest so perfectly I hesitated even mentioning them.
To paraphrase Keith Reid, Pirate Radio does skip the light fandango; it does do cartwheels across the floor. But it also has moments where I did feel kind of seasick, and if I didn’t quite call out for more I didn’t turn a whiter shade of pale, either. In the end I enjoyed this movie, my eyes remaining open from start to finish with the ceiling flying away to reveal a solidly effervescent musical journey that buying tickets for is about as easy as calling for the waiter and asking him to bring along another drink.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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