Entertainment

‘Pirate Radio’ shows when rock could float

“Pirate Radio” shines a light on a neglected little truth about rock music: Its true nature is less “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or “Satisfaction” than “Yellow Submarine.”

All the bubble and bounce (and seaworthiness) of the latter song defines Richard Curtis’ affectionate 1960s comedy about a boat that rocked, just off British territorial waters. It broadcast pop tunes to a grateful audience when the airwave-controlling BBC largely refused to play such tommyrot.

The boat is a libertarian wonderland in which an American deejay (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a wacky owner (Bill Nighy) and a dandified lothario (Rhys Ifans) frolic in peace, free of all government intrusion — until a buzz-cut Cabinet minister (a briskly hateful Kenneth Branagh, who trained for this part by playing a Nazi in HBO’s “Conspiracy”) tries to invent a reason to shut it down.

Curtis, the writer of “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” has dropped another bright joy-bomb that explodes in every direction with rock classics used in surprisingly direct and literal ways. (A highlight is the track that plays under one of the most spectacular screen entrances of the year, centered on the toothsome January Jones).

Rock ‘n’ roll, to Curtis (who was a kid at the time), is all little kids jumping on beds, tired nurses on break, custodians at work and lots of people (this is his strangest tic) who listen on the toilet. He is taking the mickey out of rock’s view of itself as an esoteric taste for self-described rebels: Listening to rock is for everyone, even oldsters in sweater vests.

At the same time, though, broadcasting rock becomes a genuine act of rebellion, not just a pose of sullen alienation. The pirate radio broadcasts become actually illegal, the shipmates facing risk of prosecution and even death.

Curtis is less deft in juggling the many characters and story lines than he was in the more polished “Love Actually.” This movie was cut by 20 minutes after it sank in Britain, and it still feels 20 minutes too long, even as several episodes run shorter than “Love Me Do.”

One guy pops up from the crowd to announce a quickie marriage, in a subplot that begins and ends in a rush. Curtis gets overly ambitious when he hauls in references to the greatest maritime defeat Britain ever won and the most famous ship ever built in Liverpool.

The film works on the appeal of its splendid cast of oddballs (my favorite is Nighy, whose bends and wobbles can make you seasick) and the skullduggery of Branagh’s fun-extermination mission. Too, the opportunity to hear so many great songs (some of them not yet written as of 1966-67, when “Pirate Radio” takes place) on a theater sound system is not to be overlooked.

For its wicked innocence, this is the finest rock movie since “Almost Famous,” which presented rock as a sort of exclusive club with initiation rituals and furious ejections. The two movies travel in opposite directions to arrive at the same conclusion: Long live rock.

kyle.smith@nypost.com