Curtis has failed to give us characters we can really like.
The Boat That Rocked (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:39
Fresh:21
Rotten:18
Average Rating:5.3/10
Consensus: The good cast and rollicking soundtrack eventually drown when this comic homage to pirate radio loses its quippy steam.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for language, and some sexual content including brief nudity.
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:01-04-2009
Synopsis: Pirate Radio is the high-spirited story of how 8 DJs love affair with Rock n Roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s this group of rouge DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic,... Pirate Radio is the high-spirited story of how 8 DJs love affair with Rock n Roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s this group of rouge DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing Rock n Roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down. The band of rebels is lead by The Count, played by the Academy Award Winning Philip Seymour Hoffman, Quentin the boss of Radio Rock, Gavin the greatest DJ in Britian, Midnight Mark, Doctor Dave and Young Carl who comes of age amidst the chaos of sex, drugs and rock n roll. The film features an unbelievable selection of music including The Beatles, The Stones, Beach Boys, Dusty Springfield, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, David Bowie, Otis Redding, Cat Stevens just to name a few. The film is laugh out loud funny and speaks to the rock n roll rebel in all of us. --© Focus Features [More]
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Sturridge, Jack Davenport, Ralph Brown, Chris O'Dowd, Rhys Darby, Will Adamsdale, Tom Brooke, Tom Wisdom, Katherine Parkinson, Ike Hamilton, January Jones, Tallulah Riley
Director: Richard Curtis
Director: Richard Curtis
Screenwriter: Richard Curtis
Producer: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Hilary Bevan Jones
Studio: Focus Features
Reviews for The Boat That Rocked
Looking back for a suitably rousing episode from our national past, Curtis has alighted on Dunkirk, a tragedy narrowly averted, which he reprises as mirthless, feelgood farce.
Curtis ambitiously stirs action and tragedy into his usual mix of romance, comedy and politics, but the resulting film is all over the place. It looks and sounds great, but none of the elements come together.
Sensational stuff from one of the best writers of his generation and a film which will appeal to every age.
‘The Ship That Sank’ would be a more appropriate title for writer-director Richard Curtis’s latest and most disappointing entertainment. It’s a cripplingly self-conscious and self-satisfied tribute.
The rom-com glue that has turned every other Curtis film into box-office gold is absent. This is a listless, sketchy mess.
The movie is boisterous, sentimental and worryingly deficient in laughs for a worryingly large amount of the time.
Well over two hours long, the film outstays its welcome, but it does have some truly magical moments that outshine anything Curtis has done before.
It's a delight to be in the company of this crew, so much so that you'll be tempted to book a roundtrip.
Basically, what starts as a sharp comedy ends up - like most Radio 1 DJs - just going on. And on. And on. And on....
At its best, this is as engaging, funny and warmly moving as Richard Curtis’s finest work.
Curtis hangs situation and character comedy on a homage to rock’n’roll. That would be fine if it were funny, but auto-pilot Curtis prevails.
But Curtis tries to juggle too many storylines, giving none of them enough time to develop. A final act swerve into disaster movie territory is also ill-advised. Still, Bill Nighy is superb, here playing Bill Nighy as the station’s rakish boss.
The Boat That Rocked is about 40 minutes too long, relies on too many obvious and repetitive gags and tends to sag and loose pace too often for a Richard Curtis film. The good news is that this is no where near as drab or unentertaining as Wimbledon.
The main problem, however, is that it's just not funny or inventive enough, and drifts towards tedium whenever Bill Nighy isn't on screen. If ever a movie needed Hugh Grant to save it, it's this one.
It's a passable, if overlong, piece of fluff. But you'll have completely forgotten about it less than an hour later.
A mix-tape of successes and failures, perhaps too light for its subject, but a silly, easy watch.
Latest News for The Boat That Rocked
October 04, 2009:
New: Brand New Trailer and Poster. ![]()
More...
September 07, 2009:
Five Favourite Films with Richard Curtis
Richard Curtis has a plan. "What I've decided is to choose recent films," he explains to RT. "I do think that often people get stuck in always saying the five greatest films of... More...
May 03, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review ![]()
More...
April 02, 2009:
Five Favourite Films with Bill Nighy
There can be few actors better suited to starring in a film about the golden age of British rock and roll than Bill Nighy. No wonder, then, that he's front and centre as part of... More...
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