Director: Richard Curtis
Cast: Bill Nighy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, January Jones, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Davenport, Gemma Arterton, Emma Thompson
Rating: M
Running Time: 135 mins
Stars: 4
New Zealand born Richard Curtis has not had a lot of experiencing directing films. Prior to The Boat That Rocked he has only directed the romantic comedy Love Actually (2003). But he has had a lot of experiencing writing and producing comedy in film and television. Curtis is part of the group that made such comedies as Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones and my personal favourite, the low key The Girl In The Cafe, along with Mr Bean and the cult Blackadder series.
In Britain 1967, radio stations do not play rock/pop music. They don't like the music, they don't like what it stands for, they don't like the people who make it and they don't like people listening to it. As a result, unlicensed pirate radio stations take it upon themselves to give the people what they want to hear, in particular a radio station called Radio Rock that airs from a ship anchored in the North Sea. The DJs are rock & roll men who are loud, crude and have no manners. And the public love them. One Government Minister played by Kenneth Branagh (Valkyrie) despises them and makes it his personal agenda to shut them down. At the same time, 18-year-old Carl joins the crew at Radio Rock and it provides him with a valuable life experience as his journey, and those of the rest of the crew, are followed throughout the film.
The plot of The Boat That Rocked is very simple: The Government tries to shut down the radio station, the radio station sticks it to the man. But the film is not about the plot. It is about the crew of Radio Rock, how they band together, how they stick by each other and how they live the best days of their lives in the most entertaining and engaging way. But after sitting in the cinema for over two hours, I did not leave wishing that there was more of an intellectual story. I was quite satisfied with the story of humour and emotion. It is fundamentally a comedy. But it is a British comedy with dramatic actors and these combinations make the best kind of comedies. It is a comedy that is clever, well acted and actually funny, unlike 99% of the comedies that come to the screens every year.
The ensemble cast is brilliant. Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt; Charlie Wilson's War; Capote), a man who has really capitalised on his Academy Award for Best Actor three years ago, is fantastic. He really is a great actor who can do anything. Bill Nighy (Underworld; Pirates Of The Caribbean; Love Actually) is good as always and Rhys Ifans (Elizabeth: The Golden Age; Vanity Fair; Notting Hill) portrays the epitome of 1960s rock 'n' roll. The rest of the cast give excellent support and despite it being a large cast, the film is able to focus on every character at some point, and within the colourful bunch of DJs is every part of nostalgic 1960s rock & roll.
