SHOW:
Pistol
WHERE TO WATCH:
OUR RATING:
4.5/5 Stars
WHAT IT'S ABOUT:
A six-part rock biopic about groundbreaking punk-rock band, the Sex Pistols, as told from the viewpoint of the band's founder and guitarist, Steve Jones (Toby Wallace). From their early days as a group of kids who idolised the New York Dolls, the Stooges and David Bowie through their transformation at the hands of their manager, Malcolm McClaren (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), and new frontman, Johnny Rotten (Anson Boon), into the abrasive, snot-nosed face of working-class 1970s England, through their breakup just a couple of years later, Pistol charts the rapid rise and fall of one of the most important musical acts of the 20th century.
WHAT WE THOUGHT:
Like the Sex Pistols themselves, this miniseries about the band that popularised punk rock in the UK should come with a few disclaimers of its own – a few carefully marked footnotes to separate fact from fiction and how, in the Pistols' case, the line between fiction and reality wasn't always that easy to tell apart.
The Sex Pistols were the first punk-rock band... as long as you ignore the other punk and proto-punk bands around. They set the tone for punk as rock's most rebellious, anti-establishment movement to that point... but their entire image was basically manufactured and commodified by their manager. Their only proper album, Never Mind the Bollocks: Here's the Sex Pistols, is regarded as one of the defining punk albums, but musically, it was a lot less "punk" than your average '60s garage rock album. They couldn't play their instruments... unless you count their drummer, original bassist, and - though it took him a little while to get the hang of it, he did by the time they actually hit the recording studio - their guitarist. They were the first rock group to swear live on daytime British TV... actually, that's probably true.
Pistol is itself less contradictory, but going in, it's worth understanding a few things. First and foremost, this is based on a first-hand account of one of the Sex Pistols themselves, but it is only one of them. John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon, without having seen it, has already strongly denounced it for not reflecting his side of the story. Second, like all rock biopics, a certain amount of invention has to be allowed, and some things are glossed over, some are condensed, and some are exaggerated for dramatic appeal.
Third, the series is directed by Danny Boyle, who is both clearly a fan of the band and is certainly not above sentimentality and romanticism. The same is undoubtedly true of its writer and creator, Craig Pearce – who is also, as it so happens, one of the many writers on Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. And though Steve Jones is certainly less afraid to make himself and his band look bad than your average rock star, that the whole thing is sanctioned and produced by a Jonesy who is decades removed from his days in the Pistols, does mean that events were probably at least somewhat seedier and nastier than they are depicted here.
So, judging Pistol by what it is rather than what it isn't, then... well, it really kind of rules. A whole lot. And this is coming from someone who knew a bit about the band going in and has listened to Never Mind the Bollocks, but have always far, far, far preferred the Clash and the Ramones, in terms of the unholy trinity of the first wave of punk bands. And still does, in fact.
Pistol really does get so much right, but what is perhaps most impressive about it is that while your usual music biopic tells the entire story of its subject in just a couple of hours – usually to their detriment, to be fair – Pistol uses six hour-long episodes to tell the story of a band who were around for just a couple of years and concentrates almost entirely on just those years, but it never overstays its welcome; never becomes anything less than wholly entertaining and endlessly fascinating. Frankly, it makes a strong case that as long as the subject deserves it, limited series rather than films may well be the future for music biopics.
Now, sure, it certainly does help that I am a big fan of Danny Boyle, am fascinated by this period in British history/popular culture, and am a sucker for a good music biopic, but this isn't only for devotees of this sort of thing. As long as you don't mind a bit of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Pistol is simply an incredibly entertaining, engrossing, and stylish (oh man, is it stylish) slice of premium television.
There is, inevitably, plenty that is familiar about the story being told here, as is expected of most biopics that aren't on the more experimental side of the spectrum, where the likes of Love and Mercy (about Brian Wilson) and I'm Not Here (about Bob Dylan) reign supreme. Slightly cringy moments where songs are written, and names are given. With a band called the Sex Pistols, whose members include Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, it would be impossible not to. Clichés about underdogs who gain fame and fortune only to be wrecked by their own success. That goes without saying.
And yet, not only does it get the big stuff right for a rock biopic – excellent live performances by the actors themselves (appropriately, none of whom could play their respective instruments before being cast); compellingly larger-than-life characters; an excellent, largely unknown cast killing it in the film's most important roles; an impressive evocation of the time and place; loads of laughs, tears, triumphs, and losses; a bloody amazing soundtrack that mixes the Pistols with their many influences – it's the smaller details that really sets the series apart as a superior example of its genre.
As for example, take a look at the scene where Steve Jones (an incredibly sympathetic Toby Wallace in a star-making turn) learns the chords for a song from the Pistols' soon-to-be-former bassist and chief composer, Glen Matlock (Christian Lees). Matlock would get sacked from the band for the three cardinal sins of looking a bit nerdy, being much too musically talented, and worst of all, being a huge Beatles fan, but here we see him playing a McCartney-esque song on acoustic guitar, and despite Jonesy's disdain for the "pretty" melody, he asks what chords Matlock is playing and if they can adapt them into a proper Sex Pistols song.
When Glen replies something along the lines of "a suspended C-major 7th" and Steve says, "oh, a C", I, as a wannabe amateur guitarist, couldn't help but give a slight chuckle of recognition. When the next chord, though, turns out to be an F major (down again from a more complicated chord) and Steve roughly yanks Glen's hand to "barre" the fret of his guitar, I burst out laughing because, as every beginner guitarist knows, barre chords are of the devil and, boy, was I right there with him.
Ironically, music biopics often suck at depicting the music itself, so it's doubly ironic that a biopic about a band which was never really about the music - as the band's Svengali-like manager Malcolm McLaren (played with a pitch-perfect mix of charm and untrustworthiness by Thomas Brodie-Sangster) himself constantly points out - gets the music so very right. It does so in these smaller moments, and it does so just as much when we see the Pistols hit the stage and prove themselves to be the most electrifying and scariest band in Britain.
Boyle and Pearce are obviously responsible for much of this authenticity – which is further amplified by the scratchy, old film-stock look of the whole thing and a production and design team who so vividly evoke a pre-Thatcher working-class London and the fashion and music forward youth movement that arose under those conditions - but so is the uniformly excellent cast. Everyone plays their parts to perfection, bringing real humanity to sometimes quite outlandish personalities, but along with the above-mentioned Wallace and Brodie-Sangster, it's impossible not to mention Anson Boon as John Lydon/ Johnny Rotten. His purposefully mannered performance as the band's wiry, confrontational, constantly sneering frontman is perfectly offset by an underlying intelligence and vulnerability. Despite the real John Lydon's protestations, he comes across really well here. Indeed, for all that this series is from the viewpoint of Steve Jones and for all that it doesn't shy away much from exposing their flaws, all of the people involved come across incredibly sympathetically. Yes, even Malcolm McLaren.
Though, of course, absolutely no one more than a pre-Pretenders Chrissie Hynde. From the way she is written to Sydney Chandler's luminous, beautifully layered portrayal of her, the whole series almost feels like a love letter to the wonderful Ms Hynde. In particular, one by Steve Jones, was sent decades later to a former flame via a most unlikely medium. That their entire relationship in the film is overwhelmingly a fabrication – they apparently had a brief fling in real life but no more than that – may be here just to give the series a romantic through-line, but (if you'll excuse my inexcusable pseudo-psychological conjecture about two people I've never met) it feels an awful lot like what Steve Jones wishes actually happened between the two of them.
Either way, it totally works and adds an extra layer of warmth to a series already overflowing with it. I can quibble about how the infamous Sid and Nancy relationship felt underdeveloped (Sid Vicious, in general, is just kind of there) or how, like all biopics of this sort, it is a lot more fun when it's on its upswing than when things start falling apart, but again, that's just blaming it for being exactly what it is... and for not being what it isn't.
All I know is Pistol has been grossly overlooked despite being on Disney+ (Hulu in the US) for well over a month now, and it really shouldn't be. John Lydon may hate it, but what does he know? He hasn't even watched it. Pistol, quite appropriately, rocks!
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
Pistol is now streaming on Disney+.