Pirate Radio: Together We’re A Team

Pirate Radio is the best movie I have seen about a boat since Titanic, and that is saying something since I saw Titanic thirteen times in theatres alone. This ship, Radio Rock, is stationed in the North Sea, transmitting to rock and roll lovers in the UK during the 1960s at a time when the British government banned the genre. The Radio Rock DJ’s make for a rag-tag team of heroes raging against the uber pompous machine. We get to know and love our cast of goofy characters mainly through the eyes and experiences of Young Simon (Chris O’Dowd), the youngest addition to the pirates as you may have guessed. But how and why people are aboard this renegade vessel isn’t important. Even the battle against the government isn’t that important (well, it is to these people). The movie didn’t even need a real plot as far as I’m concerned, and I’m not quite sure it ever established one. But rather, this is one of those movies where you can just veg out for a couple of hours, laugh at some people and some situations, and be insanely envious that you weren’t there (and that it isn’t real), all while listening to really great classic rock.

Watching Pirate Radio is like being reminded of that really great sports season you had back in high school; the kind where you were having a blast and knew the entire school worshiped you. This goofy movie’s real point seems to bring low-maintenance joy to the audience, much in the same way the pirate DJ’s brought simple joys to UK listeners in the 1960s. To enjoy the experience, you don’t need to do anything but sit back and relax to have a good time. The actual scenes and dialogue in the movie aren’t as important as the feeling you have when you leave the theatre, a feeling that is satisfyingly light. Radio’s shenanigans are carried out by old friends like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy, and Emma Thompson, delivering their A-game as expected, while the foils to the pirates are hilariously bland and clearly suffering from stick-up-the-arse syndrome. Jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean, Flash Forward) especially delivers as Twatt, and with a name like that I could have giggled the whole movie without him needing to say much of anything. It’s easy to feel like a fly on the wall, or in the hull, throughout this movie as silly moments from oddly endearing characters make the viewing experience into a rock and roll fantasy, and will surely trigger fond memories of when you were just sitting around having a bitchin’ time with your real life friends.

Pirate Radio isn’t much more than a boatload of fun, but when you do that so well, what else do you really need?