‘Come see us play. We’re AWFUL…’
Ever since the baffling success of Bohemian Rhapsody, the musician biopic has become ubiquitous. The subdued reaction to recent biopics on Amy Winehouse, Bob Marley and Bruce Springsteen suggests that we are perhaps coming to the end of this particular cycle. One thing you will rarely hear about any music biopic is the desire for it to be extended across six 45-minute episodes of television. And yet…
Created by frequent Baz Luhrmann collaborator Craig Pearce and directed by Danny Boyle, Pistol is the uneasy marriage of the one of the most subversive musical acts of all time and erm… Disney+. To be fair to the House of Mouse, Pistol doesn’t shy away from the filth and the fury of it all, but nor does it feel as downright dirty as it would if say HBO had had a crack at it. Anyway, the too young and too attractive cast includes Toby Wallace as Pistols co-founder Steve Jones, a wild-eyed Anson Boon as Johnny Rotten, Wunderhorse frontman Jacob Slater drummer Paul Cook and a hideously miscast Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious. Aside from Boon, whose performance I actually really enjoyed, the cast that make up the band are entirely shown up by Sydney Chandler who steals the show as rock legend Chrissie Hynde.
Charting the band from their formation at the hands of punk svengali, Malcolm McClaren (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) to their eventual implosion following the death of Sid Vicious, Pistol is a comprehensive run through of all of the major moments in the Sex Pistols chequered history primarily as told through the eyes of Jones (this series is based on his book, Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol).
I can see why, if you were a massive Pistols fan, this show might feel like Sex Pistols Lite. The cast are far too young and pretty for this thing to ever feel truly authentic. I hated Yesterday, for example, because I love The Beatles, and as a superfan, I felt like that film completely misunderstood everything that made the Fab Four so special. I don’t have that some affection for the Pistols, and so, was able to judge Pistol based purely on entertainment value – a metric by which it mostly delivers. The dialogue is often funny, Boon delivers a very watchable performance as Rotten (although his iteration of the notorious punk singer is far too sympathetic to ever ring true), and the recreations of iconic Pistols live shows are pretty good too.
I watched this extended biopic for the talented cast and for the involvement of Danny Boyle, and I got what I wanted out of it really – a bit of mindless entertainment. Proper Pistols fans are advised to steer clear, however.
