Pirate Radio

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

In mid- to late-'60s Britain, an unusual yet colorful subculture sprang up and thrived as a product of the upswing in British pop music, only to meet its doom within a few short years. Though the BBC functioned as the country's main source of news and music, its programmers offered very little airtime to rock & roll -- which left an overwhelming need unfulfilled. In response, small bands of "pirate" radio enthusiasts set up broadcasting towers on boats just outside of English boundary waters, and transmitted signals to an estimated 25 million listeners, 24 hours a day and seven days per week. Unsurprisingly, the DJs who took charge of these broadcasts could rival just about anyone in terms of flamboyance and outsized personalities. With Pirate Radio (released as The Boat That Rocked in the U.K.), writer-director Richard Curtis (Love Actually) travels back to the Swinging Sixties and takes a headfirst plunge into this colorful realm.

The story opens in 1966, aboard a rusty fishing trawler christened Radio Rock and equipped with pirate broadcasting equipment. Here, the slightly daft elitist Quentin (Bill Nighy) presides over a motley crew of joint-toking, sex-hungry disc jockeys including Dave (Nick Frost), a heavyset boob who nevertheless considers himself a hot property with women and loves to chase skirts; "The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an American DJ who aspires to be the first person to drop an F-bomb over the British airwaves; the gloom-laden Irishman Simon (Chris O'Dowd); bonked-out hipster Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke); womanizer Mark (Tom Wisdom); Angus (Rhys Darby), a New Zealander whom nobody likes; and the only female member of the group, lesbian cook Felicity (Katherine Parkinson). These misfits pull off quite a show -- enough of one that they attain the status of national idols for the youth culture -- but the super-conservative government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) detests the whole business and will do almost anything in his power to shut them down. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Screen: Color
• Features:
  • Outrageous Deleted Scenes

AWARDS

• Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2009

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Count
       Bill Nighy - Quentin
       Rhys Ifans - Gavin
       Nick Frost - Dave
       Kenneth Branagh - Minister Dormandy
       January Jones - Elenore
       Tom Sturridge - Carl
       Jack Davenport - Twatt
       Ralph Brown - Bob
       Chris O'Dowd - Simon
       Tom Brooke - Thick Kevin
       Rhys Darby - Angus
       Will Adamsdale - John
       Katherine Parkinson - Felicity
       Emma Thompson - Charlotte
       Tom Wisdom - Mark
       Talulah Riley - Marianne
       Gemma Arterton - Desiree
       Ike Hamilton - Harold
       Olivia Llewellyn - Margaret
       Michael Hadley - Mr. Roberts
       Lucy Fleming - Mrs. Roberts
       Amanda Fairbank - Hynes - Jemima Dormandy
       Francesca Longrigg - Mrs. Domrandy
       Charlie Rowe - James
       Sinead Matthews - Miss C
       Stephen Moore - Prime Minister
       Olegar Fedorov - Rock Boat Captain
       David Sterne - Marianne's Captain
       Bo Poraj - Fredericks
       Michael Thomas - Sandford
       William Ilkley - Commanding Officer
       Ian Mercer - Transfer Boatman
       Gudmundur Audunsson - Swedish Crewman
       Tomas Andrisiunas - Swedish Crewman
       Kris Gummerus - Swedish Crewman
       Duncan Foster - Swedish Crewman
       Katie Lyons - Angus' Boat Girl
       Kirsty Mather - John's Boat Girl
       Lana Davidson - Simon's T-Shirt Girl
       Edward Hancock - Policeman
       Sarah Forster - Model
       Poppy Delevingne - Model
       Ocean Moon - Model
       Tuuli Shipster - Model

• Director:

  Richard Curtis

• Producer:

  Tim Bevan, Richard Curtis, Eric Fellner, Hilary Bevan Jones

• Screenwriter:

  Richard Curtis

• Cinematographer:

  Danny Cohen

• Composer (Music Score):

  Hans Zimmer

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Nick Angel

• Editor:

  Emma E. Hickox

• Production Designer:

  Mark Tildesley

• Supervising Art Director:

  Rod McLean

• Art Director:

  Thomas Brown

• Co-producer:

  Ronaldo Vasconcellos

• Associate Producer:

  Emma Freud

• Executive Producer:

  Debra Hayward, Richard Curtis, Liza Chasin

• Costume Designer:

  Joanna Johnston

• Set Decorator:

  Dominic Capon

• Makeup:

  Christine Blundell

• First Assistant Director:

  Ben Howarth

• Sound Mixer:

  Ian Voigt

• Casting:

  Fiona Weir

• Stunts Coordinator:

  Paul Herbert

• Hair Styles:

  Christine Blundell

• Script Supervisor:

  Emma Thomas

• Production Coordinator:

  Suzie Shearer

• Still Photographer:

  Alex Bailey

• Visual Effects Supervisor:

  Richard Briscoe

• Assistant Director:

  Tamana Bleasdale

• Boom Operator:

  Simon Firsht

• Properties Master:

  Nick Thomas

• Assistant Director:

  Dan Channing-Williams

• Buyer:

  Kathryn Pyle

• Supervising Sound Editor:

  Julian Slater

• Post Production Supervisor:

  Tania Windsor Blunden

• Production Director:

  James Biddle

• Second Unit Assistant Director:

  James Biddle

REVIEW:

• In the mid-'60s, the BBC more or less refused to play rock & roll over the airwaves, and since they controlled all of British radio at the time, that meant the teenagers and hip adults couldn't hear tracks by such soon-to-be-legendary bands as the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks. In response, a number of enterprising businesspeople anchored boats just a few miles off the British coast, and broadcast the banned music 24 hours a day back to the mainland. These became known as "pirate radio" stations, and such a colorful piece of history would seem to provide a wealth of rich material for a British writer and director as talented as Richard Curtis.
  
  The movie opens with the recently expelled Carl (Tom Sturridge) arriving at Radio Rock, one of the most popular pirate radio stations in all of London. Carl's godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy), who owns the boat and the station, gives the young man a job and shy Carl soon meets the outlandish DJs who make Radio Rock a must-listen for kids on shore. Among the motley crew members are "The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the lone American on the ship and a true believer in the power and glory of the music; the horny, chunky Dave (Nick Frost); the quiet, impossibly handsome Mark (Tom Wisdom); and the drugged-out proto-hippie Bob (Ralph Brown). The group keeps things lively with lots of shenanigans, including the Count's efforts to say the F-word on the air, their intricate schemes to get Carl laid, and the creative ways in which the crew fights back against the sustained efforts of a repressed government bureaucrat (Kenneth Branagh) to wipe out all the pirate stations.
  
  In his previous films, Curtis has shown a masterful ability to juggle large ensembles. Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually burst with three-dimensional characters that have distinct arcs -- they grow and change no matter how little screen time they might get. And that's what's missing entirely from Pirate Radio. With the exception of Carl -- who, it turns out, got on the ship because he believes the father he never met works there -- everybody in the film is a personality rather than a person.
  
  Of course, Curtis is too talented to not serve up some funny moments with each of them -- the remarkable stupidity of Carl's roommate is a first-rate recurring gag, as is the simmering feud between the Count and Gavin (Rhys Ifans), a once-legendary DJ who makes an unexpected return to Radio Rock. Unfortunately, because these characters never become three-dimensional, the movie turns out to be a series of incidents rather than an actual story. To put it in rock terms, Pirate Radio is a collection of songs rather than a coherent album -- and while there are a couple of good tracks, the majority of them are unremarkable. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi