PIRATE RADIO (DVD review)

An audio commentary by the director and his stars, plus some deleted scenes, can't save an unfunny comedy.

That's the problem with Pirate Radio, directed by Richard Curtis, who gave us lightweight commercial films such as Four Weddings and A Funeral.

Let's backtrack. Ironically, as the British Invasion took the world by storm in the mid-'60s, Britons could only hear the Beatles, Stones and Who an hour a day on official radio. That changed when some ambitious young rock fans launched floating radio stations that broadcast rock and soul music from the waters surrounding the British Isles. Nearly half of UK listeners tuned in, and that infuriated the uptight British government, whose BBC had a lock on the airwaves.


Instead of focusing on the battle between free expression and state censorship (and drawing a parallel between today's torrent sites, like the Pirate Bay, versus the courts), Curtis is more interested in relating the sex lives of his one-dimensional characters. ... {click to keep reading at:}