Disappointing use of talent

Rating: 4/10 (12 April 2013)

Richard Curtis could have made a great, freewheeling, anarchic film about the last days of pirate off-shore radio in 1960s England.... but this isn't it. Instead he has delivered a rather predictable feel-good movie full of unlikely events and barely likable characters, making uncomfortable fun within the boundaries of the sexist "good times" that were, apparently, the 1960s.... (for some).
Typical of the movie's low ambition is the way that the government is treated in the film. Now, I'm not an expert on British politics or history.... I'm an American kid who grew up in the 1980s, and most of what I know about English politics in the late 60s, I learned from watching re-runs of Monty Python's Flying Circus. But even I am aware that Britain's government in the late 60s was mostly made up of labour liberals, whose main problem with pirate radio was the fact that they could not control it. Instead of something reflecting political reality, this film presents a very dull one-dimensional performance by Kenneth Branagh as a right-wing reactionary type.
Also typical of the movie's narrow imagination, is the way in which each of the significant female characters in the film is named after a popular 60s song (i.e. Leonard Cohen's "Marianne"), just so that the film-makers can deposit a brief montage using the pop goodies as emotional telegraph. I thought this was really predictable, and very "Hollywood" in a way.
The film's conclusion is sickeningly "feel good", with a ridiculous long shot of hundreds of little digital dingies floating in the water to save a bunch of characters who really didn't deserve so much emotion. I felt silly just for watching it. Curtis and everybody else involved should take a good look at their motivations before making any more films.