Friday, December 4, 2009
Rachel Bracker
Editor-in-Chief
The golden age of piracy, 400 years ago, yielded exciting tales like “Treasure Island” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” yet colorful language and clothing fail to entertain in another crew of misfits, 40 years ago, in the golden age of “Pirate Radio.”
Young Carl (Tom Sturridge) joins the crew of Radio Rock after being expelled from school, because his godfather Quentin (Bill Nighy) apparently will set him on track. Disc jockeys Dave (Nick Frost) and “The Count” (Philip Seymore Hoffman), four or five other men, a lesbian cook, a dull-witted roommate and other forgettable characters are introduced with just enough time to mention that Carl wants to lose his manly innocence.
Meanwhile, a government minister fumes about the profanity of glorious rock’n’roll so his aptly-named subordinate, Mr. Twatt, (Jack Davenport) uses loopholes to ban pirate radio. The pirates, however, are bound first to their songs, so they decided to set sail and broadcast from a boat.
As a historical retelling and as a movie, “Pirate Radio” falls short. The film, a history of real 1960s renegade radio stations operating off the coast of Britain, is filled with random plot devices that create confusion. The plethora of characters and subplots bombard the audience with more information than a single movie’s length can allow.
For a film about the triumph of British rock music, the soundtrack is an appallingly overlooked opportunity. While musicians featured include the Who, the Kinks and the Beach Boys, the jumble of plots and subplots distract the audience from the soundtrack, which held great potential.
Only the cast’s (or in this case, crew’s) charm save the ship from sinking the story. Frost, whose “Shaun of the Dead” remains the standard in zombie comedy, gives a sincere performance, although his comedic talent isn’t fully utilized in the film.
Hoffman’s portrayal of half-serious dedication and half-crazy musical obsession makes his character one of the few with two dimensions. Davenport stands out as the film’s funniest feature, parodying British bureaucracy in a Pythonesque manner.
Unfortunately, Sturrindge’s Carl is attractive yet bland and fails to capture the audience’s imagination or compassion most of the time. Bill Nighy still plays the aged rock star from “Love Actually,” with the same vocal mannerisms and dress code. However, in a sea of so many characters, his redundancy is easy to miss.
Instead of either focusing on the real story of British Pirate Radio in the ’60s, which wasn’t based in Rock’n’Roll, just an attempt to break the BBC’s monopoly, or creating a manageable cast of characters, the film spreads itself so thin it tears itself apart.
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