Pirate Radio (The Boat That Rocked) - 7 stars out of 10

Pirate Radio (The Boat That Rocked) - 7 stars out of 10

It quickly becomes apparent that the focus of this movie is not the pirate radio station, but rather the interactions between its quirky characters.  Philip Seymour Hoffman really steps out of his stereotype for this role.  From the moment that he appears on the screen, you recognize his voice but nothing else is the same.  Everything that happens in this movie is ridulous and it is very entertaining, though an unexpected turn rapidly transforms it from a comedy to a drama.  However, all of the acting and plot takes a backseat to "Pirate Radio"'s inspired rock 'n' roll soundtrack.  The rock music is geniusly woven to support what is occurring in the plot without trying to turn the movie into a musical.  And in the midst of all of the rock 'n' roll, Edward Elgar's "Nimrod" rises from nowhere to create an incredibly inspirational scene.  It was worth watching the whole movie for that single moment.  I realize that they wanted to keep the runtime around the standard 2 hours, but some of those deleted scenes were SO FUNNY!  This is one dvd where the deleted scenes are actually worth watching.  This movie did not receive great reviews but I feel that anybody who enjoys 60's rock music will enjoy this film.