The Boat That Rocked
And so the circle is complete, having reviewed Bronson three weeks ago, marking British cinema at its most extreme and cutting edge, to the blackly comedic but downright awful satire genre film Lesbian Vampire Killers the week after, we finally move on to the type of British film everyone from these shores has seen at least once. That's right "the Curtis and/or Elton comedy". Coming this time from the former, Richard Curtis has giving the film public one of the most interesting ensemble pieces in a British film for quite some time, bringing together the titanic comedy talents of *deep breath*... Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, Chris O'Dowd, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Sturrigde, Katherine Parkinson, Ralph Brown, Rhys Darby and possibly the most frequent actor to this blog in the past couple of months the wonderful Philip Semour Hoffman as well as cameos from numerous other talents who I will get to as the review progresses. Off the back of famous successes such as the romantic comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral, to the other romantic comedy Bridget Jones' Diary, to ... ahem... the other romantic comedy Nothing Hill, to his (in my opinion) best um... romantic comedy Love Actually it's fair to say ol Ric has written all he can on the subject. Which brings us to The Boat That Rocked, which thankfully for me wasn't a romantic comedy.
To sum up The Boat That Rocked is about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain during the mid 60s, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred classical and jazz. Essentially lead by The Count (Hoffman), a big, brash, American god of the airwaves and the flamboyant Quentin (Nighy), the boss of Radio Rock -- a pirate radio station in the middle of the North Sea that's populated by an eclectic crew of rock and roll DJs including Gavin (Ifans), the greatest DJ in Britain who has just returned from his drug tour of America to reclaim his rightful position; Dave (Frost), an ironic, intelligent and cruelly funny co-broadcaster amongst others who seemingly annoy a fearsome British government official (Branagh) whose is out for blood against the drug takers and lawbreakers of a once-great nation. Sounds rather fun doesn't it? Firstly I just want to say that I enjoyed this film however not nearly as much as I think I was suppose to, TBTR is very much a nostalgia piece, possibly harking back to possibly Curtis' (wouldn't be that old surely?) own days where we all seemingly lived in a much simpler time, where the music was nothing less than "super sonic" or "f**king magic", as my father would put it most Saturday nights.
With the amount of comedy talent on offer I felt as though I was a little cheated and wasn't laughing nearly as much as I should if I was watching the likes of Darby in Flight Of The Conchords, or O'Dowd and Parkinson in the IT Crowd to Nick Frost in his films or television shows with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. That said however the chemistry between all the actors was fantastic, essentially leaving a smile on my face from beginning to end (though it could've been about 30 minutes shorter in fairness). It was clear to see that Curtis cared for these characters living on the boat, giving them all a chance to breath and develop on screen leaving none to waste from Sturridge's character finding his long lost father on the boat (won't tell you which one it is) to O'Dowd's character getting married to an American (played by Mad Men's stunningly beautiful January Jones) after only knowing her for two weeks to how much the crew disliked, yet tolerated Darby's character who, despite living on a boat can't actually swim. The weakest of the bunch was however Branagh and Jack Davenport (y'know that bloke from Pirates Of The Caribbean) who acted as the "square" MPs with the crap taste for music and were seemingly wound up for no clear or apparent reason. As if the main cast wasn't a treat to watch on screen, the cameo of Emma Thompson as the mother of Carl was brilliant as was the beautiful Talulah Riley and even "the most loathed Bond girl ever" Gemma Arterton kept my attention in the brief comedic scene she was in with Frost and Sturridge. In a movie like this however it is hard to pick out a stand out star though that award just about (and no more) goes to Hoffman and Nighy who between the both of them truly invoked the spirit of that decade with their total disregard for rules and regulations as well as their lust for the free spirit and fun living, as Hoffman rightfully quotes in the movie "these are the best days of our lives" and my only regret is I wasn't even born yet.
Richard Curtis on the whole, delivers a pretty solid film, maybe if he had injected a bit more comedy into it, it would truly be a genuine British classic in my eyes. However as it stands it merely only a decent verging on, good film, though as with his past films it never fails to deliver that feel good factor upon leaving the cinema that the likes of Love Actually and Four Weddings have given us for many years. Upon watching The Boat That Rocked, I will indeed say these looked like seriously fun times, however its an utter shame and crime with the actors on offer that they couldn't of been seriously funny times also.
3/5 (another mark off for the lack of a Rowan Atkinson cameo)
See This If You Liked...
Love Actually, Four Weddings And A Funeral, Bridget Jones' Diary
After a bite to eat and a pint of Guinness in the pub down from the cinema it was time for tonight's film festival screening. The locally made CherryBomb...
CherryBomb
Having missed the première screening of this film on Monday night due to opting for Sword Of The Stranger instead, I was glad to have been given the opportunity to catch this on its second showing to see what all the fuss was about. Upon reading the description of the film I gotta admit the prospect of watching a movie with the ginger lad from Harry Potter (Rupert Grint) playing a binge drinking, pill popping 16 year old with a Belfast accent had absolutely no interest for me at all. Along with reading the general synopsis and seeing a few still photographs kicking about the interweb, there was only one conclusion I had for this, Skins: The Move (Norn Iron Edition). And in all honesty I wasn't proved wrong. CherryBomb follows teenagers Luke (the only actor of the 3 main leads who was Irish, Robert Sheehan), Malachy (Grint), and Michelle (Kimberly Nixon) as they embark on a wild weekend of drink, drugs, shop-lifting and stealing cars. But what starts out as a game turns deadly serious when the three discover that they can't get off the wild ride they've set in motion.
Before I tear into the negatives I will say that there was a few positives, the production team did a tremendous job with the overall filming of this movie, displaying Belfast as quite a beautiful, eye pleasing backdrop, though I still can't quite understand why seemingly everywhere in Belfast had a boat theme (The Titanic Leisure Centre?! The Boat House?! C'mon! I know what these places are really called and that ain't it). Also Grint's Belfast accent wasn't nearly as cringe worthy as I was expecting and actually delivered a decent performance as did Sheehan and Nixon, the stand out for me however was James Nesbitt who actually provided possibly the only comedic moments in the film. Right that's my positives, now onto the negatives...
Firstly these kind of films/TV shows annoy me because in 30 years time this decade is going to be remembered for kids acting like complete tools listening to shit music and thinking they're mad cause they smoked a ten deal they got hustled out of for £100 and frankly this film does very little to change that view, and as I said the Skins comparisons (except without any of the slightly comedic light hearted moments) were in their high numbers here verging on practically plagiarism which is actually a shame considering the screenwriter was the same man who brought us Middletown. There wasn't one single likeable character in this film and if they had of ended up in jail or died by the films conclusion I really couldn't have cared less for them. All that ranting aside however I will concede that this film clearly was not aimed at people of my taste or age group and will surely appeal to people who tune frantically into Skins on a weekly basis on E4. CherryBomb is not the best film I will personally ever watch from my wee country, nor is it even remotely the most original, however I will say that it was an impressive feat for those involved but that still doesn't change the fact that I'm giving it...
2.5/5
See This If You Liked...
Skins, cause you're pretty much getting an extended episode here.
2 comments:
Wow, I saw this movie on the opening night and couldn't disagree with you more. Mind you I have never watched a single episode of Skins. I thought the acting was extremely strong with all the leads and the dramatic elements to this story were convincingly portrayed. I felt emotionally hooked with these characters and their struggles in finding their identities and growing up. The opening night sold out really fast thus the extra screening you got to attend. I really liked this movie and I agree with one of the festival Directors here in Belfast who picked Cherrybomb as one of her favorite films being screened this year. Oh and the score for this film was fucking fantastic. Using so many local bands was very cool.
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