Mercury rising and falling

Rating: 6/10 (24 February 2019)

This two hour plus celebration of the flamboyant Queen front-man Freddie Mercury, chooses to put his music at the forefront of his brief and often troubled personal life and indeed ends at the scene of his greatest career triumph, to wit, Queen's day-stealing slot at the London setting for 1985's Live Aid set, even eclipsing R.E.O. Speedwagon in the process! So the movie starts and ends with the group doing their twenty minute Live Aid set, jumping back from their getting ready to go on stage to tell the singer's story in conventional format, from his days as a rebellious teenager in his parents' strictly religious Parsi household, to working as an airport baggage handler, where he is the object of casual racist comments to his fateful meeting with his band mates just as their lead singer walks out on them.
Their story of struggling to get signed by a record label, internal group squabbling, finding success, more internal group squabbling, Freddie's key relationship with his muse and soul-mate, if not bed-mate, Mary Austin, yet more internal group squabbling, his mushrooming hedonistic, by now gay lifestyle although he never publicly came out unlike say, David Bowie or Elton John and yes, even more internal group squabbling before the band all kiss and make up in time to boost Bob Geldof's fund raising Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium.
Naturally the soundtrack is peppered with any number of Queen classics which helps to gloss over the sometimes over-dramatised sequences in Mercury's life. Rami Malek never once looks like Freddie, at least from the front, although ironically the actors playing the other band members strike greater resemblances. Malek is credible as the troubled Mercury and is equally good in the musical set pieces, although I felt the Live Aid climax looked a little unconvincing at times.
Nevertheless it was impossible not to enjoy the movie as a whole, despite its shortcomings, even if Freddie Mercury still maintains his enigmatic mystique once the movie has ended.