X
- 2009
- R
- Focus Features
- 2 h 15 m
- 2009
- R
- Focus Features
- 2 h 15 m
Summary Broadcasting live 24/7 from an old tanker anchored in the middle of the North Sea (just beyond British jurisdiction), Radio Rock sends out a vibrant and unifying signal to millions across the nation, ranging in age from wide-eyed pre-teens secretly tuning in long past their bedtimes to everyday people in need of a musical pick-me-up. The...
Directed By: Richard Curtis
Written By: Richard Curtis
- 2009
- R
- Focus Features
- 2 h 15 m
- 2009
- R
- Focus Features
- 2 h 15 m
Pirate Radio
58
6.9
Where to Watch
Summary Broadcasting live 24/7 from an old tanker anchored in the middle of the North Sea (just beyond British jurisdiction), Radio Rock sends out a vibrant and unifying signal to millions across the nation, ranging in age from wide-eyed pre-teens secretly tuning in long past their bedtimes to everyday people in need of a musical pick-me-up. The...
Directed By: Richard Curtis
Written By: Richard Curtis
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 31 Critic Reviews
58
58% Positive
18 Reviews
18 Reviews
35% Mixed
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
6% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 31 Critic Reviews
58
58% Positive
18 Reviews
18 Reviews
35% Mixed
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
6% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
The best of it has the comradely, free-swinging bawdiness of Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H."
Pirate Radio does what it sets out to do. It rocks.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 69 User Ratings
6.9
59% Positive
41 Ratings
41 Ratings
33% Mixed
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
7% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 69 User Ratings
6.9
59% Positive
41 Ratings
41 Ratings
33% Mixed
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
7% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
This movie is a great example of what can happen with an exquisite cast of endearing characters who are given the freedom to add more than what is simply written on the page. Is it historically accurate? Not 100% for sure, are there continuity errors? Most definitely! Yet it is still a film that will grab you by the eyes, ears and the heart and will do right by all of them. Buy the movie and put it on whenever you need to feel better about yourself and the world you live in. I am not sure about you, but I think we need that now more than ever... Now "Get me to me microphone, I need to broadcast!"
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Excellent film!!! I usually don't give a 10, but a 9 is not enough for this one. Great story, awesome cast, Phillip Seymour Hoffman is great, as usual. Interesting how England didn't have Rock and Roll playing on the radio and these lovers of Rock and were rebels got the music out there and changed a whole country. The music is perfect, the comedy is so real, not over the top or stupid. I enjoyed the reaction of the English people who listened to the radio station, makes you want to dance and sing! I loved this film, and recommend this as a must see!!!!
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Pirate Radio, the new rock-saturated comedy that proves life really is better when it's set to a '60s soundtrack, is, to borrow from the Stones, "a gas! gas! gas!"
The boat nearly sinks from character overload, and Curtis brakes when you most want him to gun it. But there’s no denying the comic energy of the cast.
The real pirate radio ships, whose days ended in 1967, wound up being towed away for salvage but the film avoids that fate -- like the best rock songs -- with a rousing finish and a pleasing climax.
A hodgepodge of half-baked characters and story ideas, stoked by a frantic climax and a blue-chip playlist of 1966 rock classics.
Witless, tasteless, toothless, pointless, garish, repetitive, obvious, and painfully dull, Pirate Radio is that exceedingly rare film that never, but never puts a foot right.
Also known as "The Boat That Rocked", this comedy presents the offshore radio phenomenon that happened in the UK in the 1960s. It does not sink like a stone, but it does not really set sail either. I don't know if it is based, partially or fully, on real life characters or events, but pirate radio was a real thing. This focuses on a group of mostly male DJs, with a parallel tale of government officials plotting to take them down. It is good for a few chuckles, but it has a nostalgic, ersatz 1960s vibe to it, with that era's excesses presented as light comedy. They make the most of things at the end with some cool underwater effects.
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Great soundtrack! The movie that came with it was a little distracting though. But in all seriousness, Pirate Radio is a fun-but-flawed period piece of when Rock and Roll on the radio was all but illegal in 1960's Britain. The cast gives out mixed performances with a borderline-mediocre job from the protagonist and a pretty poorly-developed baddie. However, the pros outweigh the cons in this case, being more **** pleasure than anything.
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This film purports to recreate, as it says in the opening scenes, 1966, a heyday of British rock'n'roll. Pirate radio was shut down in late 1967. So it is baffling that the movie is loaded with references to the late 60s and even the early 70s--in its characters, clothes, and songs, esp. (one Dj is an ancient, apparently 55-year old hippie, as though he teleported in from some 1990 film). Two songs associated with American top-40 radio in 1969 (released in late '68) are used as signatures of British Pirate Radio--the Turtles' "Elenore" and Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover." Yeh, when I think 1966 English rock, I think of the Turtles and Tommy James. Uh, no. These weird anachronisms are potentially forgivable, but the script is too full of other inanities to list: it scarcely has a plot, but is a sort of collage of idiotic, disconnected scenes and jokes. The film's real downfall is its script: 80% of the humor--I am not overstating the dumbness here--is a kind of reality-show, babbling toilet/ sex humor that would probably be abjectly eliminated from a Jackass movie. The often sundrenched, high contrast photography is nice and poignantly suggestive of what the film might have been, so I give this two stars. But the script is a no-star, frozen-dog-in-the-night "woof." I have no idea how Philip Seymour Hoffman ended up in this thing. This movie is beyond disappointing: it is rock-solid stupid.
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Awards
Sannio FilmFest
• 1 Win & 5 Nominations
St. Louis Film Critics Association, US
• 3 Nominations
Irina Palm d'Or
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
