Pirate Radio - 3 stars

I had a few problems with Pirate Radio (the British title is The Boat That Rocked). For one thing, the character Kenneth Branagh plays is too over the top. I mean the way the character is written, not the way Branagh plays him. Obviously he is supposed to be the bad guy, and the British government did try to shut down the stations. But they made him so cartoonishly evil that I didn't buy it. Lines like "that's the beauty of being the government. If you don't like something, you simply make it illegal. Like that terrible haircut." Or the scene where he tells his assistant that if he doesn't find an excuse to shut them down, he will fire the guy and he will never work again. The could have tried to make him a little more believable. And the almost Hitler like mustache is the capper.

Another thing is the plot. The story is about this pirate radio station and how the government is trying to shut them down. Well, we never really feel like the station is in danger of getting shut down until the end. At one point, the government decides to make it illegal for British businesses to pay for advertising on the station. How do they get around that? By hiring the most popular DJ in England. That would help their ratings (which are already thru the roof), but how does that get around the legality of advertising? It's never really explained.

Most of the movie is just a day in the life kind of stuff. We follow the new guy who is a virgin and wants to know who his dad is. We see the egos of The Count (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) match up against the great Gavin (Rhys Ifans), culminating in an exciting game of chicken. We see one guy get married on the ship and that marriage ends badly. But there is never any real sense of danger until the end.

Also, for some reason there is a rule on the boat that it is guys only (except for the cook, who is a lesbian). Every other Saturday they are allowed to have girls come over for a day or so. Unless a DJ gets married, then his wife is allowed to live on the boat. Why do they have this rule? It is never explained.

I am still recommending the movie. The performances are good and there are a lot of laughs. The running time is just fine and I was never bored.