Criminally Underrated is a new series here at The Nerds Templar where we take a look at movies that are, well, criminally underrated. Maybe they weren’t box office hits, but gained a cult following later on with home video or streaming. Maybe they are films from big named directors/stars that don’t get the credit they deserve compared to their other films, but are just as good if not better. For whatever reason, they are criminally underrated.
Richard Curtis wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Love Actually (which he also directed). Any one of them could be considered for the Mt. Rushmore of British films. Despite that, I can’t tell you if I’ve honestly seen any of them. Love Actually, which I know I haven’t seen, was his directorial debut, but it’s the second film he directed, Pirate Radio, that I’m here to talk about.
Also called The Boat That Rocked, it was released in 2009 and was a box office disappointment despite starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Chris O’Dowd, Rhys Darby, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and more. It features incredible music from the time period and is genuinely funny yet you probably haven’t seen it or haven’t seen it in years.
That was the case for me, I saw it when it first hit home video and despite owning it on Blu-ray for years, hadn’t rewatched it in over a decade. I popped it in last night and it’s still very funny and touching. Taking place in England in the 1960s, it’s about a group of radio personalities who broadcast rock & roll from a ship in the North Sea. The British government (lead by Branagh) wants them shut down for corrupting the British youth.
Pirate Radio works for two reasons, its cast and its soundtrack. The music is utterly fantastic featuring songs by The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Turtles, Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, The Who and so many more. Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” fits into a scene flawlessly. It was an amazing time for music and each radio personality brought that music to life. You can clearly tell Richard Curtis loved this era of music because it’s 100% a character in his film.
Then there’s the actual characters. Go back up and read that cast I mentioned. It’s literally a who’s who of British and Irish talent with Philip Seymour Hoffman as the wildcard American DJ known as The Count. Nighy, Darby, Frost, Ifans, are all funny people who can handle drama pretty well as well. How this cast with Branagh as the bad guy isn’t beloved is beyond me. Plus it has roles played by Gemma Arterton, Tom Sturridge, Talulah Riley, January Jones and others.
Pirate Radio is funny and filled with great music, but it’s also charming and sweet. Sturridge plays a young lad who is sent to the boat by his mother and it turns out, his long lost father might be on board. Everyone takes a liking to the boy and congratulates him when he loses his virginity. They throw a stag party for O’Dowd’s character who is getting married and despite making jokes about everyone, they all genuinely like and care for one another. They stand together to fight the government and even their fans turn out when they are needed. Not one character feels out of place and you understand why this mishmash of people would all get along for the love of music.
Like another of his films, About Time, Pirate Radio is a Richard Curtis movie that gets ignored. It’s not a rom-com darling like Notting Hill, but to me it’s one of his best projects. I like it so much I watched an hour plus of deleted scenes with commentary from Curtis himself and found it hilarious every time he made a joke about how this scene shouldn’t have been cut because maybe it would have made the film a hit and not a disappointment. You gotta love a guy that self-aware. If you haven’t seen it in over a decade like me, give it a rewatch. If you don’t know of its existence then give it a try, you should be pleasantly surprised.
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