Since its’ beginning, rock and roll has stood for rebellion. Since Elvis’s first hip shaking on the Milton Berle show shocked adults and religious and self appointed authoritarians denounced the music as decadent, obscene and a threat to society. The new movie Pirate Radio celebrates rock music and the rebellious behavior it spawned.

During the late 1970’s to 1984 radio stations based on freighters blasted music from high-powered transmitters from international waters off the shores of Europe evading control of and violating strict government regulation, especially in the U.K.

It’s an attractive set-up for a movie that entertains and plays a lot of great rock music. The plot, although thin, provides a stage to see an array of interesting and crazy characters, which make the movie worth seeing.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman, plays “Count”, the top dog of the on-air line up and spirit leader of the crew. Bill Nighy adds interest as the flamboyant captain and presumed General Manager of the Rock Radio ship. You will recognize some of the other characters from previous movies from writer/director Richard Curtis such as Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. One of them, Rhys Ifans plays Gavin who returns to the ship as a rival of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character, demonstrates a particularly sexual on air persona that stokes the anger of British Government Minister Dormandy, way over-played by Kenneth Branagh. Made to look a little like Adolph Hitler, Branagh’s Dormandy is ridiculously nasty in a cartoonish way that isn’t funny. I can imagine the part being played much better by John Cleese.

So the story sails along by navigating the battle of Rock Radio (good) and the British Government (bad), the small sub plots between the disc jockeys and crew, the coming of age of a young onboard visitor, and the adoration of the fans on land.

The music is of course terrific with a heavy dose of British Invasion and should make an attractive sound track CD.

A friend of mine, John Catlett was the GM of the Laser 558, the last of the Pirate Radio ships. The end of the Laser was more realistic than the ending of Pirate Radio. It lost its’ mooring in a storm in the North Atlantic and was overtaken by the Spanish Navy. After building up a huge audience in the course of a year, all was taken away by Mother Nature and the Spanish Navy in a day.

Pirate Radio: Written and directed by Richard Curtis, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost. The film also stars Tom Sturridge, Jack Davenport, Ralph Brown, Chris O'Dowd and January Jones.