Film.com's FREE movie of the week is "Love the Hard Way." Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Charlotte Ayanna star in this drama about a thief who falls for a curious, beautiful young woman. As their intimacy grows, a slick cop (Pam Greer) is closing in.
In Britain 1966 recently expelled student, Carl has been sent by his mother to find some direction in life by visiting his godfather, Quentin. However, Quentin is the boss of Radio Rock, a pirate radio station in the middle of the North Sea, populated by an eclectic crew of rock-and-roll deejays. Life on the North Sea is eventful. Carl discovers the opposite sex and who his real father is. Meanwhile, pirate stations have come to the attention of government minister Dormand, who is out for the blood of these lawbreakers. In an era when the stuffy corridors of power stifle anything approaching youthful exuberance, Dormand seizes the chance to score a political goal, and The Marine Broadcasting Offences Act is passed in an effort to outlaw the pirates and to remove their ghastly influence from the land once and for all. What results is a literal storm on the high seas. With Radio Rock in peril, its devoted fans rally together and stage an epic Dunkirk-style hundred-boat rescue to save their deejay heroes. Some things may come to an end, but rock and roll never dies.
"Most of the story is funny and cheerful, and it's bolstered by an utterly fantastic '60s rock soundtrack."
In ancient historical times, i.e., 1966, the officially licensed radio stations in England didn't play rock 'n' roll music. That would have been no great loss in, say, the mid '70s, but 1966? That was the
PETER TRAVERS -
November 12, 2009
Rock & roll history is being retraced in this appealingly ramshackle comedy from Love Actually writer-director Richard Curtis. Set in England circa 1966, the movie revels in the chaos that ensued when prudes at the BBC decided rock music was an evil that needed censorship and maybe banning. That’s when a renegade band of merry-prankster DJs, collectively known as Radio Rock, took to the sea in an old tanker and started broadcasting the devil’s music 24/7. The BBC, in the tight-assed person of