Formulaic but respectable treatment of iconic pop star featuring Malek's Oscar-winning performance

Rating: 6/10 (14 March 2019)

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was a rabid Beatles fan (and of course still am!). And there were countless other bands and solo performers that followed in their noble footsteps, and I was a big fan of them too. But one of the groups I had no interest in was Queen. There was something about their music that left me cold-maybe I just couldn't stomach the weird combination of musical theater with hard rock. And I hated bombastic (crowd singing) lyrics like "we are the champions." Occasionally they had a bona fide, really catchy hit like "Killer Queen," or "You're My Best Friend" (despite the poorly mixed and over prominent bass part on the original recording).

So you might surmise that I didn't like Bohemian Rhapsody (the film) given my history with the band. Actually, however, I found it thoroughly watchable. And yes many critics condemned it as "formulaic," which it was probably was. But my response to that is, "so what?" You don't go to see a film about Freddie Mercury to study intellectual history-you basically want to find out why the band was so popular and what the nature of Mercury's charisma was.

Much of the film's success is dependent on Rami Malek's Oscar-winning performance. His is a bravura performance, mainly highlighting Mercury's talent as a performer. But he also does well in the more dramatic moments--particularly his love/hate relationship with his bandmates: guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) and bass guitarist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello).

Aside from his being gay and contracting AIDS toward the end of his life, I knew nothing about Freddie Mercury's biography and found all the information about his family background quite interesting (which included the fact he was born in Zanzibar and his family was of Indian Farsi ancestry).

The film keeps your interest through a series of escalating conflicts. In the early stage it's Mercury's rebellion against a strict and traditional father. Once Mercury joins the band, they must find a way to raise money for their first album-after selling the van the band uses to travel around for concerts, they battle a record executive over the six plus minutes length of their eventual hit, Bohemian Rhapsody (the A&R rep is actually a fictional character played by Mike Myers of all people!).

Less interesting is Mercury's relationship with a girlfriend, Mary Austin. Despite his purported devotion to her, she's merely a sounding board for Mercury's initial profession of his sexuality (he tells her he's "bisexual," but she insists that he's gay).

The band eventually leaves its record company EMI after they refuse to release Bohemian Rhapsody as a single. There's more conflict propping up when the bandmates resent Mercury for starting a relationship with his day-t0-day manager, Paul Prenter (who is later cast as the villain, spilling all the gossip about his relationship with Mercury, in a tell-all TV interview).

Mercury's liaison with Prenter as well his more successful relationship with Jim Hutton, is hardly fleshed out at all and one gets the feeling that there's a lot more known about his dealing with his bandmates then what went on in his private sex life.

Bohemian Rhapsody eventually wears out its welcome with some convenient fudging of historical events. The rift between Mercury and the rest of Queen supposedly occurred after the mercurial singer decided to cut a solo album. But truth be told, two of Queen's other players cut solo albums first. And Queen never broke up before the Live Aid concert.

Then there's the matter of AIDS diagnosis-in the film he's contracted AIDS right before Live Aid-but in reality, Mercury came down with AIDS a few years afterward. Thus all the angst before the concert, proves untrue (and hence manipulative).

Critics also were aghast over the bandmates getting their digs in against Mercury. There's the scene where they force Mercury to leave the room and discuss whether they wish to take him back into the group. Again: never happened. I don't begrudge the bandmates for sticking up for themselves however-indeed Mercury didn't write all of Queen's hits.

The Live Aid concert also proves a bit anti-climactic (better to watch the original on Youtube). I would have rather heard the full version of "Killer Queen" at some point then to have to sit through all the truncated numbers of the Live Aid concert (most of which were not necessarily their biggest hits).

I was actually glad there was little emphasis on Mercury's illness and declining years. Yes it appears he indulged himself in later years with lavish parties often characterized as "orgies." But somehow none of that diminishes Mercury's status as a cultural icon.

While I'm still not convinced of Queen's ascendancy in the pantheon of great rock groups, Bohemian Rhapsody nonetheless made me a believer in Mercury's talent more as a performer than songwriter. Like another great "performer," the iconic Michael Jackson, Mercury died way too young!