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The Boat That Rocked
Sometimes films are made for fans and the general critical world can miss the point. Some reviewers have been less than kind to The Boat That Rocked but fill the cinema with music fans, roll the reels and you have a real party on your hands.
Granted, there are songs that don’t fit the proper timeline and no, there isn’t a riveting story arc, it’s much more an ensemble piece held together by the music, that glorious sixties music. For those that don’t know, the late sixties was the height of the British Music Invasion in America and it’s doubtful that import would have had the same impact it did without the Pirate Radio Stations.
These floating radio stations anchored out in international waters, broke the stranglehold the BBC had on popular radio broadcasting at that time in the UK. Over twenty-five million Brits got their daily pop fix from these outlaw stations. Of course the government at that time couldn’t let that stand and eventually created a law that helped to abolish them but not before the damage was done.
New Zealand writer/director Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Bridget Jones’s Diary & Mr. Bean) uses a mostly British cast with Philip Seymour Hoffman being one of the lone American cast members and he’s a lot of fun as The Count, the preeminent DJ on board until star DJ, Gavin (Rhys Ifans) joins this motley crew and the battles begin.
There are times when Curtis tries a little too hard to capture the feel of the pop flicks of the time (most notably The Beatles’ movie Help) but this is done infrequently enough not to become too derivative. The tunes are the real stars though and if the night’s audience was any indication, these songs are still burned deep in the popular psyche.
Being a big music fan helps your enjoyment of this film immensely, yet non-music geeks should still enjoy the ride and beside any piece of popular culture that makes one run home and play all their old favorites from the dusty part of their record collection is a good thing.
Rob Hudson
official website
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