The great soundtrack cannot rescue this film

Rating: 3/10 (14 April 2009)

The basic premise is that if you can pick music from nine years in the most productive periods in popular music, you should have a great basis for a film. Sure enough the tracks were well chosen in general, even though only snatches were heard of some. (The soundtrack CD has some eccentric choices such as Crimson & Clover by Tommy James rather than Mony Mony, but I can't remember this in the film anyway.)
After its well-loved soundtrack, I am struggling to think of something good to say about this film. It has Richard Curtis's standard themes of: each person has someone out there with whom to fall instantly in love; and that a four-letter word will always cause a laugh, but sadly, there are few other comedic moments.
What is worse is that the characters are barely developed and so you never identify with anyone. Instead I got the impression that writers had several half-baked ideas, but no one ever got round to picking just one or two. For example, after the son discovers his father, they just look a bit uncomfortable and the scene shifts to something else. In short, this is a film still in search of a script. I think Richard Curtis thought his reputation would be sufficient. He was wrong.
And do not expect it to bear any relationship to history, though in fairness Richard Curtis admits that its objective was only entertainment rather than truth. Even so, it is still worth mentioning that instead of being a bunch of idealists who would go down with the ship, many of the DJs simply joined the BBC in 1967 (Tony Blackburn, Dave Cash, Kenny Everett, Ed Stewart, Dave Lee Travis, Johnny Walker etc). All in all a waste of an evening, though sitting through some of trailers before the film, made me realise the forthcoming attractions would have been far, far worse, so I ended up feeling grateful!