"Pirates Radio" - REVIEW

If you've ever wanted to sit back and do virtually nothing but listen to classic rock, then "Pirate Radio", the latest from "Love, Actually" director Richard Curtis, is the film for you. Little happens in this based-on-actual-events story, but yet there's enough in both music and "story" to make for an enjoyable time at the movies.

First, a bit of historical pretext. In 1967, Rock was in its heyday, with nearly half of England (25 million people) listening to it on the radio. Problem is, the British government banned Rock on the radio, so a number of ships exploited the law by broadcasting music from the sea. Eventually, the government pushed harder to get rid of the ships entirely, and the rest is up to Curtis and crew to fill in the blanks.

Curtis seems to want to get the party started as soon as possible, because after a bare bones intro, we're thrust aboard the ship where we'll spend 98% of the film. We're taken there at the same moment that Carl (Tom Sturridge) comes aboard after being expelled from school. His mother's intentions for sending him are to...straighten him out(?). It's never quite clear (somewhat on purpose), but it does set up for a great moment from Quentin (Bill Nighy) who snorts, "a spec-TACULAR mistake!"

From then on, well, not too much actually happens in terms of driving the plot forward. Someone loses his virginity. Someone gets married. A superstar broadcaster (Rhys Ifans) returns to challenge the authority of The Count (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Throw in the angle of straight-laced Carl joining a rag-tag group of music lovers, and you have what amounts to an aquatic "Almost Famous". The only way the plot can change at all, is when we're taken ashore for the other 2% of the film. These scenes are centered on Alistair Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh, sporting a blond Hitler mustache), a government official who would like nothing more than to see the pirate radio ships meet a quick demise. Aiding him is a man simply known as Twatt (Jack Davenport from "Pirates of the Caribbean"), who tries again and again to appease his rigid superior.

So how does the film fare with so little plot? Fairly well, actually. Though it certainly goes on too long, it's an enjoyable film thanks largely in part to the appealing ensemble (Carl is the closest the film has to a true lead), perhaps even more than the rocking soundtrack, which is kept more in the background. Much of it is amusing, and at times even hilarious or in the case of one moment in the last 10 minutes, triumphant. But that's really it. The characters don't really grow because not too much happens to them. Even Carl, who would be the obvious choice for the character who grows the most, doesn't go through any radical changes. Almost immediately he's part of the crew, though characters later laugh about how they all thought he would be a bore when he first arrived.

But in the end, these aren't the sort of things that are TOO important in the overall film, which remains enjoyable despite running too long. It's just a shame that Curtis and crew couldn't have reached a little higher.

Grade: B-/C+