La Grande Escroquerie du rock'n'roll

Julien Temple's inaccurate depiction of the rise and fall of British punk pioneers the Sex Pistols is nevertheless an entertaining tale of life in the music industry. Told from the perspective of the group's erstwhile manager Malcolm Mclaren, it charts the creation, development, hyping and subsequent implosion of the Sex Pistols, up to early 1979, when bass player Sid Vicious committed suicide.

Drawing on archive footage (not all of which is authentic), mixed with animation, newsreels and Mclaren's narration - the film is often as haphazard and random as the genre it speaks of, but, bolstered with music by the Sex Pistols (And peculiar partnerships of the group with odd guests, such as Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs), the film trundles along at a cheerful pace.

Much of the film is in exceptionally bad taste (The nude teenager "Sue Catwoman" - whose underwear was visibly chromakeyed in when the censors refused to pass the scene, the pedophile music boss, Martin Boormann singing "Belsen Was A Gas", for example), and its rambling plot bears testimony to the numerous rewites needed over the three years it took to produce, during which time the director was replaced (Russ Meyer was originally to direct), the financial backers changed more than once, the Sex Pistols formally split up, the film was retitled from "Who Killed Bambi?", and Sid Vicious died having (allegedly) killed his girlfriend.

In real terms, the film is not brilliant, and its factual inaccuracies have since been proven in court, but as an artistic statement and a chronicle of the punk scene in London in 1978, it's very enjoyable, and should form part of any serious music-fan's "History" section.

Malcolm McLaren and Julien Temple's The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle offers up a load of old twaddle about the (rapid) rise and fall of the Sex Pistols. It's basically McLaren literally flogging a dead horse and milking the Pistols for all he could. And acting like he came out on top, shining. Blah blah blah.

But who cares. It has great Pistols/punk footage and music. And that's all that counts.

At the risk of making you spend more money, I suggest that before you watch this movie, you should read John Lydon's autobiography, 'Rotten'. It gives a good account of that era and once you have read a bit into the history behind the film, it will mean a whole lot more. That doesn't mean to say that it ceases to be weird. The opening sequences are just about the strangest twenty minutes of film that I have ever seen. There are moments of brilliance though. Particularly Sid Vicious shoving a cake in some french prostitute's face is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I generally think that Sid Vicious was an idiot (well, he was) but in this film, he comes across as an almost like-able, possibly insane character. The film seems to have a storyline of sorts but it all becomes confused in a muddle of history, punk rock and random sex. Malcolm McLaren comes across as a self-centred egomaniac (as usual) and Steve Jones is interesting as the detective on his trail. The trip to Rio seems to confirm Lydon's doubts about the whole thing. It was just a gimmick and what IS the point in glorifying the deeds of a man who helped to steal what was basically working class money? The song was crap anyway. This is a bizarre film so approach with an open mind or you will switch off very quickly as I did first time round.

after seeing John Lydon break down over the senseless exploitation of sid vicious when he absolutely hit bottom in Temple's other sex pistols film "The Filth and the Fury," he must have wanted to disown this little piece of trashy lucre. the finale with its spinning headlines and the anka-fueled massacre are just the tips of the iceberg on the meaty, excessive collage film assembled here.

the star on board is mclaren, in full sleazeball form. to the unsuspecting eye, it seems like an act. it is, of course, until you realize that it's the same act he kept up in the public eye for years, while running his little pet project dry. mclaren cut his teeth on theater of the absurd and fancies his managerial life a kind of kaufman-esque performance. the only problem is that mclaren often-times does not have the consent of his lab rats, a bunch of naughty British hooligans that called themselves the sex pistols (no, mclaren did NOT come up with the name).

therefore, it's partially amusing to watch mclaren credit himself with inventing the wheel in punk rock, and partially disgusting when you approach the subject matter knowing he gave nary a shat about the well-being of his bandmates nor the political and social commentary they, especially rotten, were trying to convey. mclaren was more interested in assembling a forefather to reality TV- life as nihilistic, self-imploding art.

the movie itself is not much. there's laughs here and there, but mostly it's a bloated and deadweight companion piece to "The Filth and the Fury," mostly wound into watchability by excellent live performances and some bizarre visual interpretations of songs (some of which seem hardly composed on a punk rock budget). "who killed bambi" (also mclaren's idea with none of the band members really interested in the idea) shows up in several parts and proves to be a quite pointless endeavor.

the majority of punk rock was not known for its rock star exploits off the stage (in fact, that was kinda the point- that these werent rock stars at all). if there had to have been a band to make a boisterous film with sex and drugs and midgets and animation and disco dancing, it's probably best that it was the sex pistols. overall, this film should be mostly reserved for hardcore fans, though others may find value in the sheer novelty of the package. but do yourself a favor and see "filth" first.

As I've had the sound track for many years, I finally took the opportunity to watch the movie. My initial response was that this movie seemed so sliced and diced, it made the editing of "Manos: The Hands of Fate" look like brain surgery by comparison. My guess is that Malcolm McLaren had multiple cans of Sex Pistols footage lying around, and was having a difficult time trying to make a film out of it. To get his creative juices flowing, he'd cut segments from every reel; roll them up; snort lines of cocaine with them, and finally tell Julian Temple "to fix that bit of film with this bit I just used". Whilst in the process, the coke inflated McLaren's ego, and he came up with the idea to make the incomplete "Who Killed Bambi" into a documentary explaining how he orchestrated everything!

This movie tries so hard to be clever, instead it just seems immature and uninspired. All there is going on, is that we have band members doing dumb things; McLaren claiming credit though without any proof backing up anything he's saying, and some decent footage of Sex Pistols shows.

Some many years later, the film was pretty much confirmed as a lie, in that time McLaren wasn't known to repeat the same method and end up with the same results. These days this film is considered a tongue-in-cheek mockumentary instead of a pile of crap. So, there really was no reason to make this film, other than money.

The only value this film has is that it contains archival footage, other than that it really didn't need to be told in the fictitious tale of McLaren. It would've done better if it was narrated to the audience like it was a scrapbook. But, because it's told in such a fictitious manner the audience is left possibly irritated, or numb.

I'd give it a 8/10 because it contains decent live footage of a band I love. But, I'd give it 3/10 because the movie is a lie; so poorly edited, and presented to the audience that it is supposed to be an actual film. I meet in the middle at 5/10.