Anytime a film boasts that preposterous catch phrase "Based on True Events", the marketing team who decided to brand the film as a quasi-true story places an ungodly burden of scrutiny on said film. Often, the flicks baring this mark of truthiness are every bit as awful as they are untrue (for more on this, see A Beautiful Mindif you have the time to waste).
Thankfully, there are plenty of other cases when it works to a film's benefit to to intertwine loose facts and even looser myths (24 Hour Party People, a modern masterpiece). Pirate Radio really doesn't fall into either category, but like the similarly musical minded Almost Famous before it, the film charms its way through what is a nostalgic (read: false) reconstruction of history.
In real life, the renegade boat broadcasters in the UK operated nothing like the Radio Rock crew we meet in Pirate Radio. The actual unlicensed stations had a lot more to do with monetary opportunism than freedom of speech and libertarian values. As far as pleasant fallacies go though, Pirate Radio is top shelf entertainment.
Oh, and the cracking soundtrack doesn't hurt either.
Pirate Radio -- Richard Curtis Floats An Amusing Parable on The True Power of Rock 'N' Roll
It's been six years since Richard Curtis (who is the director and sole credited writer) got behind the camera for his grating debut, Love Actually. This time around (at least in the US version), all of the pretension has been dropped. And really, it's the only way Pirate Radio ever could have worked -- as a comedy that's reality base never claims to be more than it is: flimsy.
Honestly, can you really trust a film all about music from 1966 that plays both "So Long Marianne" (December 1967) and "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (May 1967)? The answer is, of course, no, you shouldn't accept any of it as true or even remotely believable. By all means though, that's no reason not to enjoy the film. And with the music industry tanking and radio constantly losing ground to the Internet, it's no wonder someone wants rekindle the fire with a heavy dose of fiction.
A Ship of Lovable Fools
Like the best earlier singles we hear from The Kinks, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and many other Brit standouts, Pirate Radio is first and foremost about simple emotions. The disc jockey crew aboard the good ship Radio Rock -- introduced to us by Carl (Tom Sturridge), the inevitable (but likable) coming-of-age protagonist -- are mostly a band of music-obsessed ego cases and hedonists.
Among the all male (except for the one cook, a lesbian though) group of on-air personalities, The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman, at the top of his game), and the renowned Gavin (Rhys Ifans) rule the air waves, and consequently, the actors playing both characters dominate the screen. One of the single best things Curtis has done with Pirate Radio is assemble such a great ensemble, ranging from the venerable (Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh) to the wonderfully silly (Nick Frost, Flight of Conchords's Rhys Darby).
Beware of Contact High -- This Film is Prone To Fits of Fantasy
There's a plot somewhere about a stodgy British government official (Branagh) working to bring down Radio Rock, or elsewhere, about Carl finding out the mystery of who his father is, and consequently who he is. This shorter edit (the UK cut hovered around the 135 minute mark compared to the US, 114 minute version) has little patience for the back-and-forth inter-splicing of Branagh's scenes, scheming like a Bond villain.
In these quick snippets though, his over-the-top antagonism works, as do the cuts to British listeners swinging along to the broadcasts -- everything just builds to this thankfully self-aware universe that operates without the slightest hint of seriousness. Briefly, melancholy and disappointment seep in, but in a record's flip, Pirate Radio sets right back into a tight groove.
Aside from the title cards setting the scene and, at the finale, putting the film's "true events" into historically-bloated context, the film is completely liberated from the notion of believability. If taken in as a sharply written and acted musical fantasy, Pirate Radio shouldn't ruffle too many feathers over its, uh, imaginative take on this footnote to rock history.
Besides, man, it's like, all about the music.
RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars
VERDICT: Is there a nugget of truth in this film "based on true events"? Barely. Does it hinder another captivating Philip Seymour Hoffman performance, a great comedic turn by Bill Nighy, yet one more reason to love Nick Frost (with or without Simon Pegg at his side) and an excellent (mostly) period appropriate soundtrack? Heck no.
Get your goof on in whatever way you like and just enjoy this one for what it is -- fine entertainment.
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