Gavin calls out ""Chicken!"" and plunges into the ocean hundreds of feet below. The Count mutters ""I wish I weren't so fat,"" as he makes his way to the opposite point of the radio tower, quotes some lyrics and plunges in after him. The camera cuts to the two of them apologizing to each other on air, The Count with a broken arm and Gavin with a huge cast on his leg.
This little vignette is one of the many misadventures that make up ""Pirate Radio,"" the latest from Richard Curtis, the British director of 2003's ""Love, Actually."" The film follows a gang of eight DJs at a pirate radio station in England during the late 1960s. Despite their underground nature, the stations had a huge following of rebelling teenagers and music lovers, attracting millions of listeners in their time.
The pirate part of ""Pirate Radio"" is literal in this case—all the action of the film takes place aboard the ship that Radio Rock broadcasts from, with brief asides ashore where some bumbling lawmakers (Kenneth Branagh, ""Valkyrie"" and Jack Davenport, ""FlashForward"") try desperately to shut the station down.
Cutting between different time periods and characters on the boat feels a bit more contrived than the series of intercut stories of ""Love, Actually""—it makes it hard to connect with any of the characters for the first half of the film. Trying to pull all the characters together with an ""everyman"" character in the middle isn't all that effective either, as ""Young Carl,"" who boards the boat along with the audience, would be equally interesting if his mic were muted for the entire film.
The result is a film light on plot and heavy on character. Curtis overcomes the deficiencies of the story with a great sense of style he seems to pull out of the music behind the movie.
The film's British title is ""The Boat that Rocked""—a more fitting title than ours considering the most well-developed character is the boat itself. An old rust bucket littered with rock records, seedy vinyl corners and wallpapers of band stickers, the ship runs contrary to the glamorous rock'n'roll haven the DJs paint on air as they talk about their shenanigans.
As in ""Love, Actually,"" the cast is packed to the seams with a lineup of British heavyweights. Bill Nighy is the highlight as the eccentric owner of Radio Rock. Katherine Parkinson and Chris O'Dowdtwo-thirds of the hilarious cast of the BBC's ""The IT Crowd,"" are present, and Rhys Darby of ""Flight of the Conchords"" plays the role of the comedy DJ. Philip Seymour Hoffman rounds out the cast as the de facto leader of the bunch, The Count.
Hoffman shines, but like most of the cast struggles to hold the spotlight for more than a few scenes. He makes good use of the time he gets in the ""chicken"" scene and during the more uncertain moments of Radio Rock's future, but overall we're left wanting more.
Despite the shortcomings of the story, the film offers a fun slice of a grittier age in rock and roll. The acting talent makes for a different sort of period music flick, one certainly worth a watch.
Grade: B
