The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

Pseudo-documentary about the revolutionary Sex Pistols and the creation of the British punk movement told through images, songs, animation, interviews, and other genuinely entertaining bits and pieces. The film is more of a creative work then a documentary, as it weaves a story about how the Pistols swindled music company after music company, behind their dictatorial manager, Malcolm McLaren. If nothing else, a must for fans of punk music or the Pistols, as their is a lot of interesting archival footage of the band from their brief but legendary existence. A lot of good songs too, including a disco version of 3 of the Pistols's hits, and my personal favorite, "Friggin in the Riggin," set to an animated sequence paralleling the Pistols's history.

This is very important right here, people whine and cry about how it is an inaccurate representation of the pistols upbringing, well, they would by right, BUT this film is what is called a "mockumentary", a fake documentary! It's not real! And it's obviously stated too! Its a fictionalization, it's meant to be humorous, and it is. Yes Johnny and Malcolm hated each other, but think! There is more people Johnny hated than not! (Love you john!) Overall, people who hate on this film because "it's inaccurate" are not intelligent, don't listen to them. Besides, it's a great laugh and a great display of their music and its a great film for any sex pistols fan. A must see for pistols fans

As I've had the sound track for many years, I finally took the opportunity to watch the movie. My initial response was that this movie seemed so sliced and diced, it made the editing of "Manos: The Hands of Fate" look like brain surgery by comparison. My guess is that Malcolm McLaren had multiple cans of Sex Pistols footage lying around, and was having a difficult time trying to make a film out of it. To get his creative juices flowing, he'd cut segments from every reel; roll them up; snort lines of cocaine with them, and finally tell Julian Temple "to fix that bit of film with this bit I just used". Whilst in the process, the coke inflated McLaren's ego, and he came up with the idea to make the incomplete "Who Killed Bambi" into a documentary explaining how he orchestrated everything!

This movie tries so hard to be clever, instead it just seems immature and uninspired. All there is going on, is that we have band members doing dumb things; McLaren claiming credit though without any proof backing up anything he's saying, and some decent footage of Sex Pistols shows.

Some many years later, the film was pretty much confirmed as a lie, in that time McLaren wasn't known to repeat the same method and end up with the same results. These days this film is considered a tongue-in-cheek mockumentary instead of a pile of crap. So, there really was no reason to make this film, other than money.

The only value this film has is that it contains archival footage, other than that it really didn't need to be told in the fictitious tale of McLaren. It would've done better if it was narrated to the audience like it was a scrapbook. But, because it's told in such a fictitious manner the audience is left possibly irritated, or numb.

I'd give it a 8/10 because it contains decent live footage of a band I love. But, I'd give it 3/10 because the movie is a lie; so poorly edited, and presented to the audience that it is supposed to be an actual film. I meet in the middle at 5/10.

Malcolm McLaren and Julien Temple's The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle offers up a load of old twaddle about the (rapid) rise and fall of the Sex Pistols. It's basically McLaren literally flogging a dead horse and milking the Pistols for all he could. And acting like he came out on top, shining. Blah blah blah.

But who cares. It has great Pistols/punk footage and music. And that's all that counts.

It really surprises me that anyone can say this is remotely important in the pantheon of Punk Rock. It's an incoherent abomination formulated by someone so submerged in his own world he forgot to tell a story of note. The story of The Sex Pistols has now, here in the new millennium, finally been laid down to some semblance of truth, a truth that thankfully shows the manager of the band to be the oblivious money grabber he was. When you watch director Julien Temple's brilliant documentary, The Filth And The Fury, and then come back to this mess of a picture, you wonder how in gods name it has achieved cult status.

Its worth (I own it) comes down to the songs and the videos of those tunes, I mean where else are you going to get to see Sid Vicious' videos? Ones that show us he would have made a great Punk singer had he not spiralled out of control and met a foggy heroin fuelled death. The animated ending as Friggin In The Riggin plays out is enough to warrant this as a small price purchase, but please folks can we have some focus, I lived it, I still live it in fact, but it's an appalling picture, badly edited, badly told and saved purely by the music alone. Music that the band's manager had no creative input into at all, he shall forever be nameless to me, where once he proclaimed to be a puppet master, time now shows him to purely be a Muppet and most definitely not a master of anything.

The Great Rock And Roll Swindle, 5/10 for the music alone.