“Pirate Radio”

What a ridiculously delightful flick about those increasingly mythical, carefree ’60s! It seems back in 1966, during the heyday of Britain’s musical revolution, England’s stuffy old aristocracy prevented the BBC from playing any rock ’n’ roll. Bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who—in fact, all of today’s stable of early British classics—never made it to the airwaves.

Well, no country is an island. To rectify the situation, intrepid entrepreneurs set up floating radio stations in the North Sea, transmitting just out of range of British jurisdiction. Wild, rebellious and uncensored, these floating jukeboxes became increasingly popular in England, despite the government’s attempts to shut them off.

“Pirate Radio” portrays one such station, a rusting, floating hulk named Radio Rock (based loosely on the real Radio Caroline). Aboard, the usual cast of spacey comedic characters spend their days and nights spinning wax, drinking toddies and contemplating women.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans and Bill Nighy are three such renegades of rock, giving the masses what they want. And that’s pretty much the gist of “Pirate Radio.” There’s no real tension here (other than a wonderfully stuffy Kenneth Branagh desperately trying to shut down the station), but this one’s really not meant to be any more than a musical blast from the past, a mosaic of personalities and principles that blend together like side two of Abbey Road.

A fan of the ’60s? This one and “Taking Woodstock” make wonderful cinematic bookends for the era.