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The Boat That Rocked


The Boat That Rocked


The Boat that Rocked

I feel slightly bad for not liking this film, considering that it is essentially a good-humoured and affectionate British comedy about pirate radio stations in the 1960s, but I’m afraid the best that can be said for it is that it is intermittently amusing.

Although there is an interesting ensemble cast, with Philip Seymour Hoffman the stand-out as an irreverent die-hard rocker, there are simply too many characters to keep track of, especially since some are so similar. There are at least two inexplicably-attractive-to-the-opposite-sex middle aged men, both of whom sleep with the girls that the younger men who look up to them have their eye on in remarkably similar plotlines. There are at least three ‘lovable loser’ types. None of the characters gets quite enough screen time to make us really care about their storylines and the dramatic moments feel manufactured. The central character Carl, as played by Tom Sturridge, is far too pretty and modern looking to be convincing as an unpopular virgin.

Kenneth Branagh is clearly filling in time until he is old enough to play Lear by hamming it up as snooty villains (see also Rabbit Proof Fence, Conspiracy). In the film’s least convincing subplot (and it is a hotly contested title) he plays a politician trying to shut down the pirate radio stations. Jack Davenport should sack his agent, as he appears here as Branagh’s slightly put-upon snooty villain sidekick, a role that is virtually indistinguishable from the one he plays in Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, and his character is named Twatt. Subtle comedy indeed. I bet he wishes he was still in This Life.

The sixties music was better than I had expected, not generally being a fan of anything pre-1977, but there were a few prominent soundtrack choices here that would put Watchmen to shame with their blatant obviousness. Songs about a girl’s name were particularly silly choices, especially when it is quite clear that the characters’ names have been chosen as an excuse to use the songs. And Father and Son during a dramatic scene between a father and son? Please. If it was meant to be a joke, it wasn’t funny. If it was meant to be poignant, it wasn’t. The whole predictable and mawkish ‘who’s the daddy’ plotline made me yawn; although I didn’t know who the father was until about ten minutes before it was revealed to the character, I really didn’t care that much. It was like watching Mamma Mia again with slightly better music.

If I was feeling particularly uncharitable, I could call the film misogynistic. Apart from the token shipboard lesbian, all that the female characters do is to sleep with one or several of the dj crew with very little encouragement. Unlike previous Curtis hits, it is not romantic at all. The teenaged Carl losing his virginity to the girl who previously left him to sleep with another dj while he was looking for a condom is presented as some kind of victory, although it is hard to see why. Perhaps this was a deliberate choice by Curtis to distance this film from slushy romantic ensemble Love Actually. But sentimental as that film was, it managed to handle the multiple characters and plots with more skill and heart than The Boat that Rocked which ultimately drifts along like a boat with nowhere particular to go.

And finally, I rather think the djs of Radio Rock would be shaking their heads to learn that their legacy is that we can now listen to Scouting for Girls and The Saturdays all day on bbc radio 1…

2.5/5