Pirate Radio

Director: Richard Curtis Richard Curtis

Overview

In mid- to late-'60s Britain, an unusual yet colorful subculture sprang up and thrived as a product of the upswing in British pop music, only to meet its doom within a few short years. Though the BBC functioned as the country's main source of news and music, its programmers offered very little airtime to rock & roll -- which left an overwhelming need unfulfilled. In response, small bands of "pirate" radio enthusiasts set up broadcasting towers on boats just outside of English boundary waters, and transmitted signals to an estimated 25 million listeners, 24 hours a day and seven days per week. Unsurprisingly, the DJs who took charge of these broadcasts could rival just about anyone in terms of flamboyance and outsized personalities. With Pirate Radio (released as The Boat That Rocked in the U.K.), writer-director Richard Curtis (Love Actually) travels back to the Swinging Sixties and takes a headfirst plunge into this colorful realm. The story opens in 1966, aboard a rusty fishing trawler christened Radio Rock and equipped with pirate broadcasting equipment. Here, the slightly daft elitist Quentin (Bill Nighy) presides over a motley crew of joint-toking, sex-hungry disc jockeys including Dave (Nick Frost), a heavyset boob who nevertheless considers himself a hot property with women and loves to chase skirts; "The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an American DJ who aspires to be the first person to drop an F-bomb over the British airwaves; the gloom-laden Irishman Simon (Chris O'Dowd); bonked-out hipster Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke); womanizer Mark (Tom Wisdom); Angus (Rhys Darby), a New Zealander whom nobody likes; and the only female member of the group, lesbian cook Felicity (Katherine Parkinson). These misfits pull off quite a show -- enough of one that they attain the status of national idols for the youth culture -- but the super-conservative government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) detests the whole business and will do almost anything in his power to shut them down.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/13/2010
UPC:	0025195052276
Original Release:	2009
Rating:	R
Source:	STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVS LLC
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00
Sales rank:	31,174

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Philip Seymour Hoffman	The Count
Bill Nighy	Quentin
Rhys Ifans	Gavin
Kenneth Branagh	Minister Dormandy
Nick Frost	Dave,Dave
Charlie Rowe	James
January Jones	Eleonore
Tom Sturridge	Carl
Rhys Darby	Angus
Michael Hadley	Mr. Roberts
Lucy Fleming	Mrs. Roberts
Jack Davenport	Twatt
Ralph Brown	Bob
Chris O'Dowd	Simon
Tom Brooke	Thick Kevin
Katherine Parkinson	Felicity
Gemma Arterton	Desiree
Tom Wisdom	Mark
Talulah Riley	Marianne
Emma Thompson	Charlotte
Will Adamsdale	News John
Ike Hamilton	Harold
Stephen Moore	Prime Minister
Michael Thomas	Sandford
Bo Poraj	Fredericks,Fredericks
Sinead Matthews	Miss C
Amanda Fairbank-Hynes	Jemima Dormandy
Francesca Longrigg	Mrs. Dormandy
Olivia Llewellyn	Margaret
David Sterne	Marianne's Captain
Olegar Fedoro	Rock Boat Captain
Duncan Foster	Swedish Crewman
Ian Mercer	Transfer Boatman
William Ilkley	Commanding Officer
Edward Hancock	Policeman
Katie Lyons	Angus' Boat Girl
Kirsty Mather	John's Boat Girl
Lana Davidson	Simon's T-Shirt Girl
Poppy Delevingne	Model
Sarah Forster	Model
Ocean Moon	Model
Tuuli Shipster	Model
Tomas Andrisiunas	Swedish Crewman
Gudmundur Audunsson	Swedish Crewman
Kris Gummerus	Swedish Crewman
Hans Zimmer	Composer

Technical Credits

Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis	Director,Screenwriter,Executive Producer,Producer
Tim Bevan	Producer
Eric Fellner	Producer
Hilary Bevan Jones	Producer
Debra Hayward	Executive Producer,Producer
Liza Chasin	Executive Producer,Producer
Fiona Weir	Casting
Paul Herbert	Stunts
Ronaldo Vasconcellos	Producer
Kevin Adams	Special Effects
Dafydd Archard	Sound Effects
Stuart Bagshaw	Sound Effects
Owen Bleasdale	Sound Effects
Rachel Boot	Sound Effects
Oliver Brierley	Sound Effects
Richard Conway	Special Effects
Andy Bennett	Stunts
Ian Voigt	Sound Mixer

Editorial Reviews

In the mid-'60s, the BBC more or less refused to play rock & roll over the airwaves, and since they controlled all of British radio at the time, that meant the teenagers and hip adults couldn't hear tracks by such soon-to-be-legendary bands as the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks. In response, a number of enterprising businesspeople anchored boats just a few miles off the British coast, and broadcast the banned music 24 hours a day back to the mainland. These became known as "pirate radio" stations, and such a colorful piece of history would seem to provide a wealth of rich material for a British writer and director as talented as Richard Curtis. The movie opens with the recently expelled Carl (Tom Sturridge) arriving at Radio Rock, one of the most popular pirate radio stations in all of London. Carl's godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy), who owns the boat and the station, gives the young man a job and shy Carl soon meets the outlandish DJs who make Radio Rock a must-listen for kids on shore. Among the motley crew members are "The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the lone American on the ship and a true believer in the power and glory of the music; the horny, chunky Dave (Nick Frost); the quiet, impossibly handsome Mark (Tom Wisdom); and the drugged-out proto-hippie Bob (Ralph Brown). The group keeps things lively with lots of shenanigans, including the Count's efforts to say the F-word on the air, their intricate schemes to get Carl laid, and the creative ways in which the crew fights back against the sustained efforts of a repressed government bureaucrat (Kenneth Branagh) to wipe out all the pirate stations. In his previous films, Curtis has shown a masterful ability to juggle large ensembles. Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually burst with three-dimensional characters that have distinct arcs -- they grow and change no matter how little screen time they might get. And that's what's missing entirely from Pirate Radio. With the exception of Carl -- who, it turns out, got on the ship because he believes the father he never met works there -- everybody in the film is a personality rather than a person. Of course, Curtis is too talented to not serve up some funny moments with each of them -- the remarkable stupidity of Carl's roommate is a first-rate recurring gag, as is the simmering feud between the Count and Gavin (Rhys Ifans), a once-legendary DJ who makes an unexpected return to Radio Rock. Unfortunately, because these characters never become three-dimensional, the movie turns out to be a series of incidents rather than an actual story. To put it in rock terms, Pirate Radio is a collection of songs rather than a coherent album -- and while there are a couple of good tracks, the majority of them are unremarkable.