Pirate Radio (2009) * * *

 

Directed by:  Richard Curtis

Starring:  Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Tom Sturridge, Chris O'Dowd, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Davenport

Now here is a group dedicated to a cause.   In 1966 England, the BBC broadcast rock and roll for only thirty minutes a day.   The stodgy, conservative Parliament wouldn't have it any other way.  Even though The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Animals, and other British Invasion bands had already been topping the charts worldwide for years, rock and roll was still seen as immoral and a vessel leading to the decay of Britain's moral fiber.   

The staff of DJ's aboard Radio Rock think differently and broadcast rock and roll 24/7 from a ship anchored in the North Sea with transmitters powerful enough to blast The Who, Procol Harum, etc. all over the British isles.   People loved not only the music, but how Radio Rock stuck it to the establishment.   Listening in was an act of defiance.  

Quentin (Nighy), the station manager, is forever trying to keep the music playing and his eclectic cast of characters happy.   The crew and DJ's are all men, with the exception of one woman who is a lesbian, so Quentin boats in female companionship every few weeks to keep morale high.   For guys like The Count (Hoffman), the lone American on board, the rocking and rolling supersedes everything in life except perhaps breathing.   When the British government enacts legislation to snuff out Radio Rock from legally transmitting the tunes, The Count would be the guy to literally and figuratively go down with the ship.

Pirate Radio may have a few too many characters populating the ship, but it has an infectious, anarchic quality.   These are mostly young people (but some older guys as well) for whom music is a calling.    On the flip side is Alistair Dormandy (Branagh), the Parliament member who has made it his life's mission to shut down Radio Rock because he is one of the hateful fuddy-duddies mentioned in the first paragraph.  The horse is already out of the barn, but men like Dormandy still want to shut the door.   It would've been satisfying, since Pirate Radio is based on a fictional ship (although there were real ships performing such "illegal" transmissions), to see Dormandy get a comeuppance.  

Instead, the ship gets its own comeuppance at the worst possible time, and we see just how much it means to this group to keep the music playing for as long as physically possible.   The Count leads the way and the rest of the movie follows.   Pirate Radio, like the music featured in it, is a throwback to a bygone era...and a lot of fun.