Review of The Boat That Rocked (2009) by Chads — 16 Nov 2009

He's mentored before, the great Phillip Seymour Hoffman, quite memorably, in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous", who as legendary rock journalist Lester Bangs, teaches young William Miller(Patrick Fugit), a cub reporter for "Rolling Stone" magazine, to be "ruthless", and above all else, to not make friends with the rock stars.

Carl(Tom Sturridge), the godson of the floating pirate station's owner(played by Bill Nighy), is the right mentoring age, but "The Boat That Rocked"(the original UK title), much like the Demitri Martin character in Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock", allows a non-fan to be our entry point into the rock and roll milieu.

Hoffman, playing an American deejay named "The Count", loves rock and roll; his rival, Gavin(Rhys Ifans), also loves the most vibrant of musical genres, but its importance is secondary to the women that the job of spinning vinyl procures.

(These willing girls seem to confuse disc jockeys for actual musicians.) Carl, a virgin, is more enamored by the groupies than rock and roll, and that's, as the late Fats Domino would say, "a shame", because it would have given both Quentin's godson and the American more to do.

At times, "Pirate Radio"(the inferior US title) seems too preoccupied with comic bits that are irrelevant to the deejays' job of rockin' England. (And the dramatic ones with Kenneth Branagh, as a government official trying to shut Radio Rock down, get repetitive.

) Carl could have been the film's vehicle which took the moviegoer closer to the music. Disappointingly, he's merely an observer to its spirit. Hoffman goes it alone. Unlike Gavin, "The Count" is no chicken; he's willing to die for rock and roll.

(***SPOILER ALERT***) When the ship goes down, Carl should have been at the Hoffman character's side, enduring the onrushing sea water while spinning The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice", to help assure rock radio's survival.

"The Count" is the only true believer. "Pirate Radio" can be construed as a metaphor; it reflects the current state of the rock format, which is losing handily to talk radio stalwarts like Rush Limbaugh, and others of his ilk.