Such a frustrating disappointment

best movie i've ever seen.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I titled this "documentary," although it's so much more. In retrospect England was an empire in precipitous decline. Mortgages were extended to 40 years leaving nothing to posterity. Immigrants - legal and illegal - were taking work cheap and crowding out the council estates, thus leaving youth disaffected with no hope. The Sex Pistols voice that deep discontent, so the Callahan Labour government ginned up a campaign of 2 Minutes Hate as a temporary distraction from his evil party's stupid policies. I was caught up in it too.However, in 1985 I bought a copy of Never Mind TheBollocks. After listening to it enough times to decipher the lyrics, I was blown away! No wonder the government had to shut them up, the Pistols pulled no punches - calling the government a fascist regime was simply going too far. Well, God bless these lads.This film paints the despair of four down and out, yet very real people. I'd buy the fellows a round any time. They are genuine, no phoniness whatsoever. The best scenes are when the band hurled green on the hook-nosed heroin addict from the New Musical Express who was responsible for starting the media's hate campaign. And also the scene during the TV interview with the totally forgettable Bernard Whathisname. The lecherous host came on to one of their fans, so Glen called him a dirty old man. You could see this lilylivered coward blanch with fear, and cringe as he called for a commercial break.The Sex Pistols proved to the world that if you have something to say, then set it to 3 chord rock and proclaim it loudly!

The Sex Pistols were one of the most underrated bands ever; just listen to the driving guitar of Steve Jones, the wailing dynamic voice of Johnny Rotten and the drums of Paul Cooke driving the rhythm with Glen Matlock on the bass; yes Glen Matlock on the bass and not Sid Vicious; Sid came later and couldn't play the bass, by all accounts, thus giving the band its reputation of incompetence which they didn't deserve; so they only used three chords; so what; so did some of the rock'n'roll greats of the fifties and so did The Ramones.I am not of the same age as The Sex Pistols, I identify more with the likes of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly, but I sure envied the fans in the 100 club shown in this movie when they witnessed The Sex Pistols there on Oxford Street with Sid in the audience inventing his pogo dance.In this film we get an early glimpse of their Svengali, Malcolm McLaren, at the store SEX that he owned with his then wife Vivienne Westwood; we see him as he swans around the shop like Sean O'Casey's strutting peacock, wearing a teddy-boy suit and sporting a duck's arse hair cut; here was the opportunist who was to take The Sex Pistols to the top and leave them there; high and almost dry in America with no money, no access to credit and no communication as he refused to take or return any of their calls; McLaren was booked into a luxury hotel whilst the band had to make do with some motel.The Pistols response to this was to tell the audience that they were getting 'one song and one song only as this isn't fun;' Johnny Rotten called on his alter ego John Lydon to relay that pathetic statement to the American crowd; this didn't seem to be the type of crowd that cut Sid's face that night with a missile earlier in an American performance; this was a crowd that took notice when they heard that it wasn't fun any more; it was then that we heard the voice over of Steve Jones saying that he had looked at Sid trying to play a bass, that he wasn't sure was plugged in, and wondered if he wanted to go ahead being a Pistol; he said he left soon after that but had regretted it ever since; he loved performing and loved the sex it had brought him throughout the touring life of The Sex Pistols.Interviews with the members of the band were carried out in silhouette throughout and it became clear that the band trusted the man doing the interviews; one Julien Temple the director of this film who knew the band from his previous movie 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle' which he had made twenty years prior to this one.Even though it had been twenty one years since the death of the twenty two year old Sid Vicious, the telling of the story brought a tear to Johnny Rotten's eye as it is quite clear that John Ritchie, or John Beverly, or whatever Sid's real name was, was the biggest victim in the whole Sex Pistols story; he was one of the Johns who had always been a friend of the other John the John they changed to Johnny Rotten.There is a lot of archive footage in the film and a lot of it is entertaining; we do see the situation as it was in Britain during the seventies which led up to the famous 'winter of discontent' and we even see the man himself, Laurence Olivier, uttering those famous Shakespearian lines from his own movie 'Richard III' from whence the newspaper sub-editors stole the quote; we see political Britain and racist xenophobic Britain but we also see very funny Britain; there is footage from some of the funniest men of the day: where else can we see archive footage of Nat Jackley, Tommy Cooper, Max Wall, Billy Dainty and even Arthur Askey who was as funny as toothache? There is the infamous television interview with Bill Grundy who, we are told by Steve in voice over, was drunk too – we weren't there but it was a terrible interview and the poor fellow deserved to be fired which came soon after that day in 1976.I didn't have anything to do with these people as there was another CS on the scene in London who owned a club and knew Julien Temple but I remember them from afar as their music was as exciting as the first time people of my age had heard Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard; it was a terrible shock when they went away and Elvis started to sing ballads but bands like the Pistols hit the dust too when it stopped being fun.

Watching the first ten minutes of F & T F, I can honestly say that I experienced the only true religious experience I've ever felt in the matrix of a movie theatre. I had an out-of-body experience, so completely was a swept into the world of Julian Temple's interpretation of what The Sex Pistols were, how they came to be, when they came to be, and the madness of Great Britain that allowed them to come to be. It was probably the only time cheek irony ever really worked, that is, playing majestically classical music during the opening credits. And then that marvelous segue from the lower-income housing courtyard to Johnny's blistering presence. As ferociously brilliant a film as the band itself. But the film is more than just about the band; it's also about the fear of the establishment when its status quo is threatened, the media, and British society. The hypocrisy of the British government is ever evident when we see a public official denouncing the band as a disgusting bunch sub-human runts that are "the antithesis to human-kind" and then later see this and play a benefit concert and host an x-mas party for the children of striking firefighters. THAT WAS THE POINT OF THE PISTOLS in some respects. Their anger was grounded in the mistreatment of working people. Maybe it was a publicity booster, but I've seldom seen any American bands get their ands dirty and link up with Labor issues. The film is also about Language. It seems that using racial epithets are accepted in some British circles, but airing some traditional four letter words on public television, is still taboo. Anti-drug? Certainly. Johhny Rotten comes right out and extols the evils of Heroin and we see what it can do to a human being in Sid and his ultimate demise. SEE THIS MOVIE!

The first Julian Temple documentary on the Sex Pistols, 'The Great Rock n'Roll Swindle' was a gimmicky treatment that suggested the creation of the band was all a clever confidence trick perpetuated by Malcolm Maclaren. In his version the Pistols were a personal creation that deliberately manipulated the media and the 'suits' that ran the music industry into paying out vast amounts of cash even when the band failed to produce any material. This second version of events is a little more honest. Maclaren is shown to be a self-deluded egotist, the real driving force being 'Johnny Rotten', and the band, far from having the upper hand, were in fact ripped off financially by the very people they were supposed to be rebelling against.It all ended in a shambolic final concert where Rotten wails out 'No Fun' for 15 minutes and then walks off with a smirking, 'Ever felt you've been cheated?'Trouble is; this is a lie as well. The Pistols carried on after Lydon left; sad fun and games with the Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs and Sid Vicious' infamous rendering of 'My Way' being the 'highlights'. What's more, within months of Johnny Rotten's noble statement about not selling out at the end of the documentary, the Pistols reformed in the 21st century and gave progressively pathetic concerts.It's still an interesting documentary but I guess the myth has now become so mixed up with the legend that anything approaching the truth is lost for ever.This documentary does feature, however, an archive interview with Sid Vicious – whose real name was John, Lydon affectionately remembers - which I have never seen before. It says more about the times than anything else in the film. Although dressed in his trade mark Nazi t-shirt and initially punctuated with all the predictable anarchic attitudes, this veneer gradually slips away to reveal a young naïve man, who's life along with his heroin addiction was spiraling out of control. No fun, indeed.