Critical Film Condition

If the boat’s a rockin’, do come a knockin’.

I dig the whole sex, drugs and rock’n’roll thing. Well, except for the drugs. My vice of choice is green tea and I know that makes me a total wuss. And my guess is that this movie was made for people exactly like me.

I totally admit, I like almost anything that writer/director Richard Curtis has ever done (Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually). Love it. (I know, wuss, wuss, wuss). This movie, I didn’t like so much and I hate to write that. It hurts like Mark Darcy saying this about Bridget Jones: “Mother, I do not need a blind date. Particularly not with some verbally incontinent spinster who drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and dresses like her mother”. Ouch.

“The Boat that Rocked” is an ensemble comedy about a bunch of mutinous DJs on an illegal pirate radio station in the North Sea in the 1960s. It is based on the true story of “Radio Caroline” that broadcasted pop music to the British masses from a ship anchored in international waters three miles off the coast of Felixstowe, Suffolk. Around 22 million people tuned in every day (remember, kids, downloads weren’t around that time). They dared to play the music that defined a generation and defied a government that considered jazz the only playable popular music.

Curtis, the “king of romcoms” is really threading through uncharted waters here. This one is very, very mainstream and at times cringingly constructed. It mighty have worked better as a full-on musical (and I am certain, there will be a musical version of this movie at some point). Granted, the movie is very well done, a riotous celebration of hedonism and debauchery, but mixed with fabric softener. It is light-hearted and groovy entertainment, it is actually, dare I say it? – almost American. I missed the Brit wit.

When boyish Carl (Tom Sturridge) is sent on the “Boat that Rocked” to see his godfather Quentin (the gentleman boss of Radio Rock, played brilliantly by the consummately and quintessentially British Bill Nighy), he finds camaraderie, friendship, his father and loses his virginity. Along for the ride is the crew of Radio Rock:

The Count (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, the outstanding American in an almost entirely British cast), a big, bearded and brassy American DJ. Dave (Nick Frost from “Shaun of the Dead”) as the funnily jocular jockey of the airwaves. Interesting nude scene.

Rhys Ifans plays Gavin, Britain’s most verbally outrageous DJ. Just returning from his drug tour of America, he makes the Ladies go gaga. Sporting one of the cooler entrances I’ve seen in a long time. He is however outsexed by the sultry Midnight Marc (Tom Wisdom) who knows the secret to seducing women, putting the naughty into nautical.

Completing the cast are Chris O’Dowd as the lovable Simon, Rhys Darby as the comical Angus and Ralph Brown as the early-bird Bob.

And of course there are tons of easy womenfolk on that boat (including Bond girl Gemma Arterton) and a lesbian named Marianne (played by Talulah Riley).

And there’s a veritable bad guy with interesting hair: Kenneth Branagh as Minister Dormandy, a fearsome British government official out for blood against the drug-takers and the law-breakers and the bottom-bashing fornicators of his recently great country. Joining him is his equally repressed sidekick, the interestingly named Twatt (Jack Davenport).

Can they stop the music?

No, they can’t. Music is the saving grace of this movie. And great music it is.

The soundtrack features tons of fantastic music by The Kinks, The Beach Boys, The Who, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, The Kinks, Moody Blues, Dusty Springfield, The Isley Brothers and David Bowie – among many, many others.

If you go see it, see it for the music.

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