Still Crazy

Rock n’ roll is a young man’s game. That's why it’s so sad to see reunion bands, no matter how good they were, playing their once thrilling songs to their equally aged audience. It is even sadder to see a bunch of aged English actors who have done much better work play a fictional reunion band in a very ordinary film,

Stephen Rea, Billy Connolly, Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Bill Nighy, and Bruce “Withnail & I” Robinson are assembled in this unfocussed pastiche of every rock n’ roll cliché known to man. Had this been a This isSpinal Tap-like mockumentary it might have worked but it is scripted (by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais who wrote The Commitments with Roddy Doyle) like a feel-good dramedy and director Gibson plays it with a middle-of-the-road straightness that only accentuates its lack of originality and forced attempt at poignancy. .

Most of the performances are clumsy with Connolly particularly annoying as the band’s smug roadie and Spall not far behind him as the uncouth drummer, Beano. Bruce Robinson, as the band’s Syd Barrett-like AWOL songwriter amply demonstrates that his skills lie on the other side of the camera. Only Juliet Aubrey as the band’s Girl Friday lends a note of charm to the proceedings though it is hard to accept that her character would team up with such a sorry-assed bunch of deadbeats. Still Crazy isn’t funny or nostalgic or believable but it is comprehensively ill-judged.

 

Want something different?