I went into this knowing it might be bad. I'd seen the reviews, many of them one star, and I've never been sold on Richard Curtis films - Four Weddings has grown on me over the years but the less said about the forced and largely tedious Notting Hill and Love Actually the better - but as a devote Blackadder fan i can't spot myself giving the guy another chance... until now!
Never again. Not after the dull, offensive, constantly frustrating waste of time that is The Boat That Rocked!
What is so bad about Boat (as it will henceforth be called) is largely down to missed opportunity and the fact that Curtis is clearly too in love with his subject to stop and think about making an interesting film with actual characters for an audience to enjoy. He has assembled a strong cast, many of whom have proven themselves time and again and even here try valiantly to fine something (anything) to work with but are offered zilch.
Kenneth Branagh amuses on first meeting but his character makes one-dimension seem a dream to reach toward. Philip Seymour Hoffman is left flailing with no character to get his teeth into abr the odd eccentric tick, essentially playing an off-shoot of his Lester Bangs from Almost Famous but a poor one. Rhys Ifans preens and pouts and does precious little else. Chris O'Dowd moans and irritates. Bill Nighy is his Love Actually character all at sea. Nick Frost is fat - revelation! Emma Thompson is hopelessly miscast, but luckily for her her part amounts to little more than an extended cameo.
Curtis has completely forgotten a plot here, or perhaps more accurately he has resolutely refused to let a plot get in the way of his desire to play songs he loves in their entirety while his cast leaps around and general behaves in a manner meant to tell us "these songs are great, you have to love them, you HAVE to". There is zero character development. What's worse every time a plot device threatens to rear its head Curtis quickly quashes it! Branagh and his board of stuffed shirt government toffs pop up so rarely you've pretty much forgotten they were in it everytime they reoccur, and even when they do they never seem to constitute any sort of real threat; a suggested conflict between Hoffman and Ifans characters - which could have provided some much needed middle-act meet and fleshed out both characters - is fobbed off in a 2 minute lame challenge and then immediately dismissed; said conflict arises from the appearance of January Jones, who again after revealing motives and character traits that threaten to provide genuine tension instantly disappears only for all characters connected to move on with barely a second thought. This is not only lazy, and a criminal waste of Jones (who anyone familiar with the excellent Mad Men or her turn in Three Burials can really deliver) but frankly offensive. Curtis seems to think wasting 5 minutes on story when there is a chance to cram in another song would be a missed opportunity. This 2 hour 15 minute movie could be 90 minutes with ease - and that's after you've added in another 45 minutes of actual plot and character development.
As if that weren't bad enough the occasional moments when the cast isn't bopping to 60s hits are full of horrible humour that wouldn't have been funny if it had been used in the 60s - one stuffed short character is called Twatt (oh, hold my sides they-re splitting!) - and frankly questionable acts. One scene essential sees Frost encourage the young lead to pretend to be him to sleep with a girl in the dark as she won't be able to see who it is. Or to put it another way, it is attempted rape played for humour. Ho ho ho! How does Mr Curtis come up with these hysterical japes!
Arguably there was nothing so drastically wrong with Love Actually that a studious editor or a different director with a eye for wheat/chaff separation couldn't have fixed, but The Boat That Rocked is definitive proof that Mr Curtis should never be entrusted with the budget to make a big movie ever again. This is the worst that British comedy can be and does us no favours in the eyes of the world.
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