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It’s 1966, an era when rock and roll music is at one of its greatest ever peaks, yet radio stations play less than an hour of it a day. It is therefore up to pirate radio stations like Radio Rock, broadcasting from a ship in the North Sea, to fill this void and provide entertainment to thousands of fans across the nation.

But not everyone is a fan of the eclectic mix of DJs on board and so the government decide to shut down pirate radio stations within the year, doing whatever it deems necessary to stop this filth from polluting the airwaves.

Featuring a host of comedians and talent, a soundtrack full of iconic tracks, The Boat That Rocked should be a jolly romp, in many respects it is. You will chortle throughout the films lengthy two hours forty runtime but there is no real substance below the humorous exterior. For a boat that is supposed to be about the sex, drugs and rock and roll. It steps very delicately over the sex and seems to skip the drugs altogether.

Relationships between the characters are paper-thin, when shock-jock Gavin (Rhys Ifans) joins the crew he and American stalwart “The Count” (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) clash, yet other than climbing the ships mast their tension isn’t explored. There is a pointless sub-plot of Young Carl (Tom Surridge) attempting to lose his virginity, but again this isn’t explained as to why, other than he is of age. However the must worthless plot point of the entire movie comes when Simple Simon (an incredibly on form Chris O’Dowd) gets married, only to be divorced seventeen hours later when he finds out his wife only wanted to find a way onto the boat so she could be with Gavin.

For the amount of comedic and acting talent that is on board this ship, Ifans, Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Darby, Nick Frost, there is nothing to dig ones teeth into, no meaty relationships, nothing to endure you to these characters. There are laughs, you’d expect there to be with those cast however nothing to really laugh out loud at. Not to mention Richard Curtis’ decision to include a joke ripped right out of his Blackadder playbook when instead of calling a government subordinate ‘Darling’ he instead opts for ‘Twatt’.

The soundtrack is amazing, a fantastic selection of the greatest rock and roll tracks however even this is slightly marred. The movie is supposedly set in 1966 yet features tracks from bands such as “The Who” and songs that weren’t released until well after ’66. Regardless and unfortunately, the soundtrack doesn’t make the movie but it does provide plenty of foot tapping throughout.

The Boat That Rocked could have been so much more, perhaps a tighter run time, deeper character development would have been a benefit. Despite the great cast, who don’t really put a foot wrong in terms of their acting, there are one too many on board and thus those with something to offer are left splashing on the outskirts.

Whilst the movie doesn’t exactly sink, it isn’t able to stay afloat without life jackets. Some great performances on show when they get the chance, Chris O’Dowd and Ralph Brown stand out particularly. Lack of depth and cohesion cause the film to suffer, meaning this boat merely swayed.