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The Boat That Rocked

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Review by 
Anthony Morris

In 1966, at the high point of rock'n roll's British Invasion, British radio - basically, the BBC - played less than an hour of popular music a day. 

To fill the clear demand for something a bit more toe-tapping, pirate radio stations broadcast from old cargo ships off the coast of the UK.

the boat that rocked

One such ship was the base of Rock Radio, home to a quirky collection of oddball DJs who played records, took drugs, messed around, and had a surprisingly large amount of sex considering women were only allowed on board once every two weeks.

Writer/director Richard Curtis is best known in movie circles for romantic comedies like Notting Hill and Love Actually, but in an earlier life he created TV shows like The Vicar of Dibley and this is a harsh reminder of his sitcom rots.  

With a meandering, forgettable plot kept afloat by funny yet one-dimensional characters, this is an idea that probably would have worked better sliced up into half-hour segments:

The One Where The Virgin tries To Get Laid, The One Where The Two Top DJs Get Into a Fight, The One Where the Dorky Loser Gets Married to a Stunner (guess what - there is a twist!) and so on. 

The Boat That Rocked is still fun to watch, largely because the cast (including Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Rhys Darby, Nick Frost and Kenneth Brannagh) are clearly having loads of fun themselves.

But you have to ask yourself: how many shots of people dancing around their radios does one movie need? Music is fun, we get it.  A better movie wouldn't need to keep reminding us of something as basic as that.

Then again, a better movie probably would have had the music actually stand for something more than just an excuse to show people dancing around their radios.

DVD Special Features

The flick didn't do as well at cinemas as one might have hoped or expect (taking just over $25M worldwide - or something measly like that). Therefore, included on the DVD are a bunch of deleted scenes and audio commentary with Richard Curtis.

Meanwhile, over in the world of Blu-Ray you are given access to six exclusive theatrical featurettes.

Save some time, just grab the soundtrack, it's a doozy!

Conclusion: Movie 75% Extras: 55%

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