We’re still catching up from the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and frankly, we don’t have a lot to say about this one.
Erratic, tonally garish, dysfunctional and all over the map, Mat Whitecross might have done a fine job on the documentary, “The Road To Guantanamo Bay,” but the Ian Dury biopic, “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll,” based on the titular song that made the proto-punk group the Blockhead‘s semi-famous, is a clown-ish rock flick that we’d rather soon forget.
But you kind of smelled this one from a mile away– British-made rock flicks have not fared well in recent years (see “The Boat That Rocked” or “Telstar: The Joe Meek Story,” the latter of which didn’t even see distribution in the U.S.). And keeping with the trend, ‘Rock & Roll’ has the whiff of a picture that’s just above made-for-TV-movie quality.
Sadly, many of these productions boast a lot of quality talent — ‘Rock & Roll’ stars the likes of Andy Serkis, Olivia Williams, Mackenzie Crook, Ray Winstone, Naomie Harris and Toby Jones — but no matter how great the cast, it does little good for this insufferable picture that cuts like an editor on speed and whooshes its camera around like a 13-year-old making his first film.
Even Serkis as Dury, the polio-stricken rocker and bandleader of the Blockheads, is in a no-win situation, as he’s playing a completely unlikeable, untalented arsehole character with zero redeeming qualities. The picture essentially begs the question: how did this uncouth hack land in the pages of rock history, aside from his obnoxious personality and sheer will to convince others to do his work for him?
Olivia Williams puts in a decent, but in-vain performance as his tolerant ex-wife, while Ray Winstone falters in scenes as the boy’s father.
Utilizing a theatricalized bent from the stage — think “Bronson” but without any of the insanely absurd and frightening power — “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” zips from scene to scene like a narrator on amphetamines and/or cinematic dyslexia. Towards the end, the picture wants to be a father and son tale, but after all the debauchery, infidelity and recklessness is said and done, it’s far too late (and awkward in tone), when the picture attempts to shift into a poignant drama.
While the film tries to make the case for the underdog, the crippled, working class singer who made good against all odds, the only thing that “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll,” convinces us is that Ian Dury was a completely unsympathetic nitwit and the Blockheads were the most overrated band of all time. This of course would be totally excusable if the filmmaking were powerful and the subjects’ shortcomings could be a grand irony, but as it stands, this is a picture we’re annoyed we wasted 115 minutes of our time with. Avoid at all costs. [D-]
