"And then for a couple days after that"; An AMAZING soundtrack indeed, and overall a quite good and quite memorable film set during the best years of British rock

Rating: 9/10 (16 November 2009)

Quentin Tarantino once said that "if you use the right song in the right scene it is about as cinematic a thing as you can do, you're really doing what movies do better than any other art form... the effect is you can never really hear that song again without kind of thinking about that image from the movie... when Dirty Dancing used "Be My Baby" it's like, that is the opening theme to Mean Streets excuse me. Whenever I hear "Be My Baby" I see Harvey Keitel lining back on his pillow". 's The Boat that Rocked is certainly full of truly amazing tunes, after all this is a period piece set in the 60s about a pirate radio based on a boat (and its DJs and its detractors) that gave to its incredible large audience not just 45 or so minutes of rock and pop music like the BBC but well just about 24 hour per day of the best British rock and pop. While I wouldn't go as far as to say that from now on whenever I hear tunes like the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night", the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and the Rolling Stone's "Let's Spend the Night Together" I will see the respective image from The Boat that Rocked I must say that those scenes are pretty darn memorable, pretty darn good, hell, maybe yes, maybe whenever I hear "Let's Spend the Night Together" from now on I will see that image from this movie, that truly memorable and totally satisfying scene in which rock truly wins.
What we have in The Boat that Rocked, I mean the main plot is quite simple as we just have the British government trying to find something to can make the pirate radio of our main characters (Radio Rock is its name) illegal (to be exact we have – as the boss of 's character) and on the other hand we have our main characters acting according to the circumstances of having the government nearer and nearer. But of course the 135 minutes (yes, at first I was surprised by the runtime but believe me, it feels like it is a 90 minutes film. Nevertheless in the US is was cut to 116 minutes and re-titled as Pirate Radio) are not only about the persecution but also and mainly about all those weird adventures that happen on the boat. Basically each and every one of the DJs and the rest of the crew ( plays Carl who is the newcomer and in a way our main character) is memorable and of course that's why this film feels like a 90 minutes one when it is really a quite long comedy. We have from a sort of rock star () to passing through a dude who didn't know that Jesus was the son of God and that (yes you will not have to wonder why he is tick ) and an old hippie who would risk his life to save his LPs! Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the fat friend of Simon Pegg in both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and play the main
Significance with all of those scenes with the followers
Maybe those "trying to be iconic" moments doesn't always work (like the going to the pub and the club sequence. Those scenes showing the followers of Radio Rock are sometimes just about fine but other times are just too much. Oh and the homage to the original cover of Jimi Hendrix's brilliant masterpiece Electric Ladyland was really nice and quite funny) but nevertheless minor things like those don't "ruin" this film, it's a truly fun time with the sounds of the Rolling Stones, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Who, the Moody Blues (yet another film with the beautiful "Nights in White Satin". Actually was the third time I heard it in a film during this year since I also saw A Bronx Tale and Rob Zombie's Halloween II), the Kinks, the Yardbirds Tommy James & the Schondells, the Beach Boys, the Box Tops, Ennio Morricone...