A waste of 90 minutes of my life

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I can think of very few films with a more enticing soundtrack than THE BOAT THAT ROCKED (aka PIRATE RADIO), and for that alone it is worth watching. Other pluses include assured direction and photography, and very good acting by all, including shiny small parts by Branagh and Thompson. Dialogue is good, with some very sharp one-liners, but the film is needlessly long, especially at the end, when the boat sinks, a sequence that is milked to death. Were that sequence economical enough to shorten the movie by 10 minutes, I would have easily given this film one more star. Alas, 7/10 is the most I can give to a film that is otherwise great fun to watch.

I watched this film as I was 20 in 1966 when it is supposed to have taken place and thought it might be fun. Unfortunately, Richard Curtis the director was only 9 and there I think lies the problem. He was too young to know what the swinging sixties was really like and consequently this film is pretty dreadful. Certainly not much like I recall. Throughout the film I had the feeling that it was made not only for the current youth market, but actually with the actors behaving as if they are the current youth. As I recall, which is quite vivid in my mind, people were not nearly so extrovert as all these characters appear, things like Facebook and Twitter have changed how people behave. I know it's only a current movie but it was quite annoying to endure. I think 50 years ago it would have been a Carry On, it's such a parody. It's a complete insult to women too who all behave as if they've just auditioned for a St Trinians film. Well I noticed Gemma Arterton in there so I shouldn't be surprised. Oh! and not a mention of the biggest name on everybody's lips back then, The Beatles! Like in a Carry On there were obvious characters like Bob to conjure up images of John Peel for example but it's all pretty dire. I spent my youth in one of the major seaside towns throughout the sixties where thousands of young people gathered every weekend to see all the major pop groups of the day and it was a fabulous time, but we didn't talk about sex all the time and swear unremittingly like the characters here do, that's today's youth, not 1966. Oh! and Jimi Hendrix was unknown in 1966, he didn't break through the charts until 1967 but they were still talking about him and playing his hits. I think there could actually be an interesting film made about the pirate radio stations like Caroline, but this isn't it. Thank goodness for Bill Nighy to add a bit of charisma to this mess.

I kinda see this as a companion piece to the earlier British comedy 'Still Crazy', or they could exist in same universe at least. As for the title I think the US version is much better really, the original UK title is a bit of a mouth full, mind you other Euro versions are quite radical also. In France its called 'Good Morning England' which is quite the rip-off frankly, in Germany its 'Radio Rock Revolution' and in Italy its 'I Love Radio Rock'. So all in all this movie has the most title changes ever it seems...all of which are actually better than the original UK one I think.The quaint little story here is straight forward, back in the 60's rock and pop was frowned upon by the stale old crusty stiff upper lipped British government. A government that is still clearly set in the 50's and wasn't ready or willing to accept the free flowing hippie movement and its drastic changes. During this time pirate radio stations were set up to play tunage that was considered not cricket, but to avoid British law these musical rebels set up shop in the North Sea away from land-set restrictions and out of reach. Although inspired by real pirate radio stations of the time this fictional story sees a group of ragtag DJ's on a rusty old trawler blasting the UK with dangerous rock n roll. At the same time the dastardly Kenneth Branagh and his sidekick are trying their utmost to shut them down.The plot is actually quite similar to 'Still Crazy' with the basic premise of a young man joining a group of older men to go on a wild immature adventure of sorts. In 'Still Crazy' a young man joins the band, here a young man joins the radio crew, both films focusing on all of the characters giving us multiple subplots. As you can imagine all of these little character driven stories revolve around the simple issues of sex, booze, relationships, having a good time and battling against the establishment. Each character has their own little quirk that is pretty predictable and highly clichéd in a typically rude crass British kind of way, nothing wrong with that of course, you expect it right from the start but its seen in virtually every British comedy. Apparently you simply cannot make a British comedy without Bill Nighy and here he plays the same type of rigid character yet again. Rhys Ifans plays another slimy creepy generally unlikable character, Nick Frost plays...errr...the fat bloke...again, and then pad out the rest with various familiar faces which most Brits will recognise in some form or another but everyone else won't. The only real breath of fresh air in this cast is Hoffman as the rebellious brash US DJ which gives the film a sense of 'Good Morning Vietnam' vs traditional British toilet humour...at times. The establishment that is trying to ruin everyone's fun is played in its entirety by Kenneth Branagh, a strict headmaster-esque government minister who thinks rock n roll is corrupting young minds. His sidekick played by Jack Davenport is surprisingly not a half wit as you might expect but a clever devious subordinate who digs up legal loopholes. Together these two make a reasonably fun pair of bad guys (not really bad of course) and do offer most of the entertainment character wise. Sure it might have been clichéd to make them a bumbling pair of Laurel and Hardy types but maybe that might have worked in the films favour? None the less Branagh plays the sniveling jobsworth suit to a tee with his grovelling to the Prime Minister. Alas they did let everything down by naming Davenport's character Twatt...a totally lame and unfunny gag that seems rather childish, they couldn't think of anything better than that?!By now I'm sure most of you must know what to expect with a comedy like this, all the usual Brit gags visual or otherwise, like I said its the same spiel in all UK comedy flicks (with almost the same cast). Being based on pirate radio of course this means the sexual innuendo gags are through the roof! add to that lots of frat house- like tomfoolery, soppy lovin' and a brief spot of nudity. What can I say, its silly and infantile but its still a good, warm-hearted relaxing flick with a solid soundtrack and a surprisingly semi- emotional finale. Its just not as funny as you'd like it to be.6/10

To be fair to writer Richard Curtis, after the success he achieved with films like Love Actually and Notting Hill that adhere so tightly to a set formula I think that anything that moved away from that would struggle at the box office but this film is a disappointment, largely because it has such a good cast and the idea has potential.Sadly though what we end up with is lots of pointless scenes, more vulgarity than we're used to from a Curtis film and lots of good subplots without one big plot for them all to work around. The first twenty minutes and the last twenty minutes are probably the best and even the extensive use of classic pop music from the era can't save it.If you're looking for a good Richard Curtis film I'd point you in the direction of About Time which is far superior to this sinking ship.