Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

The magnetic performance of Andy Serkis is reason alone to watch this film! Masterly performance! The film itself held my interest throughout... but having bought Dury's stuff on 7" vinyl when it came out, I had a vested interest!!! People unfamiliar with the man and his music might struggle to last the pace.

I would have liked the movie to have paid more attention to the great chart success the man had... rather than just fast forwarding to the ensuing self-destruct mode of fame!!! Missed opportunity... one could indeed say What a Waste!!! Interested in British music history... success over adversity... controversy... go and see it. A fan of Dury and the Blockheads... go and pay homage.

Might have been better... but still a great tribute to a great artiste, and well worth a view!

In one scene Olivia Williams (as Dury's wife) throws plates at Andy Serkis(Dury) in a domestic argument - typically of this film it seemed stilted and unreal. That said Andy Serkis is terrific as Dury, as I expected. Naomi Harris is hot and a damned good actress to boot. The style of the film rather gets in the way of a coherent narrative and is ultimately unsatisfying. The Blockhead's music is always worth hearing and I would have liked more band performance on screen as that is what made Dury great. It is to the movie's credit that Ian Dury is seen warts and all, like most rock stars he was a complex and difficult man at the best of times. This film was not quite what I expected it to be and therefore overall I was disappointed in the final result.

Blows the typical Hollywood bio-pics (RAY, WALK THE LINE, etc. etc.) right out of the water. A career-defining performance from Andy Serkis...his BAFTA nomination was more than well-deserved. He literally inhabits this physically and emotionally demanding role. The film does not sugar-coat the fact the Dury was a hard man to be around. Superbly edited as well, combining graphics, animation, varying film-stocks and angles, B&W, flashbacks, and fantasy sequences (ever see a band perform UNDER water?). While this might sound like a mish-mash, it certainly reflects those same artistic elements and chaos of the times. Yet the movie never loses it's narrative thru-line. A must-see, even more so for those who remember.

I was a regular Ian Dury record buyer in my late teens but wouldn't say I was in his thrall. Nevertheless, I was intrigued enough to go and see this biopic featuring Andy Serkis (Golum in Lord of The Rings) as the great man himself.

His performance is top drawer and does make you feel you are in the room with the chief Blockhead himself. But this is more than a music homage. This is a reasonably complex life story told with more than a smattering of real film skills. It opens a bit frenetically with a hotch-potch of animation, flashbacks, montage and "stuff" that the director's (Mat Whitecross - not one I know) using to try to tell the back story quick as a flash. Whilst it works in story-telling terms it feels like it's trying too hard and it takes 20 minutes for the film to find its feet as Dury metamorphosises from Kilburn and The High Roads into Ian Dury and The Blockheads.

Thereafter, the film is far more assured, but strangely unmoving on the whole, despite the fact that there are a lot of episodes that could have jerked a tear or two. Little is made of his chart success. other than the typical excesses that stardom inevitably brings in its wake; rather, the film is much more interested in his complicated love life and (abysmal) family life which lays true the aphorism that what goes around comes around. Actually, it's better for that.

In particular the relationship with Dury and his son, Baxter (played brilliantly by Son of Rambow star Bill Milner) is the main thread of the movie. Initially reticent, Baxter becomes increasingly influenced by his rebellious father and follows suit. Again, like Dad, in response to the bullying and humiliation he faced at school.

The finale is really good and pulls together a lot of strands including the Spartacus references that cropped up earlier in the action. I won't spoil it by telling you how though.

actually,the movie tries a little too hard; it's a touch too stylised for my liking, but it zips along quickly despite its fairly lengthy 115 minute running time.

Overall, I'd recommend it; if for no other reason than to wonder at Andy Serkis.

7 out of 10.

Ian Dury's span of popular success in the UK only lasted a few years and I can't say I was over-familiar with either his work (bar the early hit singles and albums) but this film belied my fear that perhaps there wasn't much of a story to tell. In fact, it probably over-compensates by adopting a non-linear narrative approach as well as some arty-farty jump-cuts and tricksy animation sequences to inject a knockabout feel to proceedings.

This is again a somewhat contrived and forced contrast to the bathetic scenes of Dury's growing up as a young boy, abandoned by his father, bullied at school by his class-mates and one particular teacher, his adult predilection for treating his womenfolk very badly indeed and finally the difficult relationship with his own son Baxter, who has since become a recognised musician in his own right.

I felt the scenes with the two women in his life, his wife and mistress were a bit overwrought and overwritten, their dialogue too forced and you're always anticipating an inspired pearl of wit or wisdom from Dury when real life just doesn't work that way, even with clever bastard word-smiths like him. It's like expecting Shakespeare to curse and moan in rhyming couplets if he was having an argument - my point is we know that Ian Dury had a way with words but not every minute of the day.

All that said, the film rattled along and certainly did the man's musical legacy proud. I thought a bit more could have been done to play up the importance of Chaz Jankel and his nifty tune-spinning - certainly Dury was a lot less successful when writing to someone else's melodies. Andy Serkus is great in the Dury role, he looks and talks the part very well, acts his disability imperceptibly and keeps up the characterisation right into the songs, of which many are aired.

For some reason the film misses out about the last 15 years of his life and we don't even get to know how he died, although the director may claim that the film was a celebration of his life and won't be the last bio-pic to fast forward past the more mundane parts of an artist's life. For that reason, the first half of the film as he struggles for success is better than the inevitable rock-star excess in the second half, where Dury's persona becomes a bit blurred.

All told though, I quite enjoyed it but regret somewhat that the director felt the need to jazz up his subject's life in a way that I'm not sure a no-bullshit guy like Dury would altogether appreciate.