Director Richard Curtis’ Pirate Radio is one of those movies that will have you rushing from the theater to the record store to pick up the soundtrack.  A fictional account of the pirate ships that broadcasted rock and roll across Britain in the 60s, the movie is packed full with great tunes from the era; and if the music alone wasn’t enough, the amount of fun the characters are having while listening to it will not-so-subliminally have you wanting to move to the oldies.  This sense of fun pervades throughout the whole film.

Although the events depicted in the film are based on real-life happenings, the account is purely fictional.  It is the 1960s when British rock and roll was at its peak, but the stuffy government wouldn’t allow the music to be broadcast from a point on England soil.  Finding a loophole, a number of pirate-radio ships anchor off the coast and broadcast their music from there.  The movie focuses on one such boat called Radio Rock.

The story is presented through the eyes of Carl, a young man who was recently expelled from school, compelling his mother to send him to live with his godfather on the boat.  Onboard, Carl meets the eclectic troupe of DJs whose personalities range from wild and crazy to quiet and cool.  Meanwhile, onshore, Sir Alistair Dormandy is leading the government charge to find a way to use the law to shut down pirate radio.  If he has to invent a new law to do so, then so be it.

The movie is all about atmosphere.  The diverse, crazy and fun atmosphere of the broadcast ship is reflective of the music that was capturing the attention of the nation; and not just young people, but about seventy-five percent of the population.  In contrast, the government atmosphere is stuffy, routine, and quiet.

The movie is fun, which certainly makes it worth seeing, but about half an hour into the film, I started to wonder about the story.  For the most part, the film just moves from one episode to another on the boat.  There is the one Saturday in which the crew—by rule, all men except for one lesbian—gets to have the company of a lady of their choosing, there is the onboard marriage of one of the DJs and subsequent breakup seventeen hours later, and there is the game of chicken between two rival DJs.

This is fun and all, but what the movie is missing is the story to really drive the action.  Sure, there’s the government’s attempts to bring down the pirates, but this plot, while interesting, moves so slowly that it seems much more like a subplot.  There’s also the story of Carl’s “education,” but he arrives on the scene having already been expelled for drugs and misbehaving, and a possible coming-of-age tale never really materializes.  Things get a little interesting when it is suggested that his mother sent him onboard so that he can meet the father he never knew, but that plotline isn’t developed as much as it could have been.

The lack of a driving plot may keep Pirate Radio from being the great film that it could have been, but it is nevertheless fun and entertaining.  Philip Seymour Hoffman is the American among a recognizable cast of talented British actors and comics including Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, and Nick Frost, who always look like they are having so much fun.  It’s hard not to join in on it.

Pirate Radio is rated R for “language, and some sexual content including brief nudity.”  Not surprisingly, the language and activities of rock and roll pirates is not for kids.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of Pirate Radio.