‘Pirate Radio’ sets sail in a sea of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll

In the dawn of a rock era, a team of bumbling- yet -endearingly charismatic middle-aged disc jockeys set sail in “Pirate Radio” to fight the corruption of the radio industry. The movie is laced with montage scene after montage scene of sex, drugs and spinning rock and roll records.

Richard Curtis, the screenwriter of “Love Actually,” the “Mr. Bean” series and “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” wrote, directed and produced the fact-based movie about a radio station sailing through the North Sea in the early 1960s. Children scheme to join the rock revolution by eavesdropping on raunchy British pop groups like The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix and The Turtles, while hiding their transistor radios from their evil, classical-music-loving parents.

On the ship, Curtis reveals the snobbery and pretension of what would likely happen on a disc-jockey reality show. One after another they try to strut their aptitude and untamed antics, all the while still spinning track after track of fun-loving early rock hits.

The bearded Philip Seymour Hoffman plays an American disc jockey among a ship of British hipsters, all under the supervision of the older and wiser Bill Nighy, the captain and owner of the pirate ship.

Tom Sturridge plays Carl, the young understudy cast aboard the pirate ship by his mother as a punishment for getting suspended from high school. It might seem like a bit of a plot stretch at first, but it gets even stranger when a disc jockey named Dave (Nick Frost) takes Carl under his wing to essentially get the kid laid. Like Shia LaBeouf in Transformers, Sturridge fits the modern popular movie mold of the young teenage actor, whose purpose is nothing more than to entrance the younger female masses.

In the same year as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th anniversary, Pirate Radio was released to serve as a light-hearted introduction of rock and roll history for teenagers.

For everyone else it’s cute and fun, but as far as entertainment, you’re ultimately watching disc jockeys sit around and play records. It gets a few laughs, but this is no ground-breaking comedy.

Grade: B-

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