Genre: Comedy
Director: Richard Curtis
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Sturridge, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Rhys Ifans, Jack Davenport
Running Time: 129 minutes (plus trailers)
The year is 1966, and Carl (Tom Sturridge) has been sent by his mother to live with his godfather Quentin (Bill Nighy) in the hopes that the influence of a father figure will help straighten the boy out. This decision turns out to be somewhat unwise, as Quentin happens to be the captain of a pirate radio station that broadcasts rock ‘n’ roll twenty four hours a day from a boat anchored off the coast of England. The ship is host to a colourful fraternity of DJ’s – including The Count (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the ‘big and beautiful’ Dave (Nick Frost) and the simple minded Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke) – and every day twenty five million people across the United Kingdom tune in. This concept struck me as not all that interesting or funny….and the film struck me in much the same way.The main problem with The Boat That Rocked is that is has absolutely no direction, no bearing. Carl is purportedly the main character, but the narrative frequently departs from his journey to explore short vignettes involving the other crewmembers – which wouldn’t be such a problem if they were even remotely interesting. But none of the minor characters are captivating or funny enough to make us care, and as such the film feels rudderless. The B-story that follows Minister Domandy (Kenneth Branagh) and his efforts to shut down the station has potential, but we never see it have any real effect on the rest of the characters. What’s worse is that all the jumping about make The Boat That Rocked over two hours long, which in my mind is unforgivable. A comedy should be fast paced; this film just sits there. Scratch that; it just floats there.
Thankfully, the performances are pretty strong; with the highlight unsurprisingly being Phillip Seymour Hoffman (you could say he anchors the film.) If one looks at Hoffman’s roles over the last few years – they include a maverick spy in Charlie Wilson’s War, a priest accused of sexual assault in Doubt and a recent vocal performance in Mary and Max – it becomes clear that he is one of the greatest and most versatile actors of our time. The rest of the cast ranges from good to acceptable, but like I said earlier, the characters they play are all utterly one-dimensional. Each of them has a single characteristic that is introduced within a minute of their first appearance, and that characteristic becomes their only joke. For example, the character named Thick Kevin is (wait for it) thick. Felicity, the ships cook, is a lesbian. And that’s it. That’s the only character development we get! Jack Davenport plays an uptight politician named Twat. When the characters name is a gag, it can be funny. Once. This film is weighed down by a bloated cargo of unnecessary, one joke characters that should have been tossed overboard.
At this point I feel a little bit like a killjoy. I do realise that it’s a comedy, and that as such the characters don’t necessarily need to be well rounded; they just need to be funny. And sometimes they are. But another think I noticed was that the style of comedy felt really dated. Like most people, my tastes have shifted in recent years in favour of the more R-rated comedies, whether they be the gratuitously violent works of Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) or the raunchy improvisational films of Judd Apatow and co. (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up.) Richard Curtis has been behind some very funny films from the nineties and early naughts including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love, Actually, but their time has been and gone. The Boat That Rocked isn’t as good as any of those movies. It features some grins, and one or two laughs, but it’s not nearly worth the cost of the voyage. It’s not a Titanic disaster, but it’s certainly no…um...I can’t think of another nautically themed joke to go here. So let me just say that The Boat That Rocked, didn’t.The Boat That Rocked is in Australian cinemas now; it will open in the US on August 28th
