The Boat That Rocked (aka Pirate Radio)

"The Boat That Rocked" is written and directed by Richard Curtis. Someone decided to change the name of the movie to "Pirate Radio" which was a really dumb idea since the original title was way better. The movie starts Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, and Nick Frost.

The movie takes place in the 1960s. British radio stations won't play rock and roll. So a group of musical pirates, as it were, set to the high seas and start their own radio station on a boat so all the wonderful English people can get some of that old-time rock and roll. The English government doesn't take too kindly to this and tries to shut the radio station down.

This is based of a true story - one which I know nothing about since the events of the movie were all news to me.

The actors are good, but I didn't think the characters were extremely likable. The guys on the boat drink, smoke, do drugs, and have promiscuous relations whenever a woman is on the boat. Oh yeah, and they also play music. There's really no sympathy for these characters, but I guess for this kind of movie there's no need for stuff like that. The actors had some good lines that got a good laugh, and then others that made me wonder if the writer had just typed random sentences and hoped that they would be funny...which who knows, it could have happened. Some of my favorite scenes were actually between the really serious British people who were trying to get rid of the pirate radio station. Watching stuffy people is just amusing to me, I guess.

The soundtrack to the movie is one of best parts of the movie. Throughout the movie there are song by artists such as The Who, The Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, The Supremes, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, and numerous other great people/groups. Listing them all would just be really tiring. The songs fit the tone of the movie perfectly and just made sense because it was 1960s music in a movie taking place in the 1960s. People should really consider buying this soundtrack for its sheer variety and entertainment value.

The cinematography is the other best part of the movie. Some frames of the movie had parts of the picture blurred. This visually looked very good and was a good approach to some scenes. Also, the camera "rocked" up and down as it was filming scenes on the boat in case people watching the movie forget the majority of the movie takes place on a boat. Reaction shots from characters as well as just good camera movement are also evident. So the movie looked great is the main point of this paragraph.

The movie was way too long and I thought the end was awful. Toward the end the film makers decided to go all "Titanic" on us. This caught me by surprise since it was previously a comedy. The ending didn't really make sense and seemed forced and ridiculous. I won't ruin the ending...but yeah...didn't really like it...then again I kind of lost interest by then because it started to drag.

Sountrack and cinematography made the movie for me. Both were great...and that's where the movie gets 2 stars of 4 from me. I was in a really bad mood when I was watching this so that may have had something to do with me not liking it that much...who knows...but still....a good 20 minutes could have been cut and some lines changed and it would have been better...so yeah...seeing it once was enough for me...

-Joseph Sbrilli