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.

During the Sex Pistols heyday, their manager Malcolm McLaren had an idea to market the band as a noveaux Beatles. From 19776-1980, McLaren spent the band's money trying get the film off the ground. He went through several directors and writers until he finally settled on Julien Temple (a young film-maker). Temple and McLaren himself shot hours and hours of footage, sketches and concert footage. After working on this project for almost four years and with nothing resembling anything like a coherent movie, Temple decided to make a collage out of the footage and re-shot and edited the useful film segments and made a surprisingly entertaining film (considering the tight budget and time restraints). By the time the movie was released, Sid Vicious was dead, John Lydon was in Public Image Limited and Paul Cook and Steve Jones were in a new wave band called the Professionals. Neither of them were even speaking to their former manager. So, at the last minute, Temple decided to make the movie about the rise and fall of the Sex Pistols.

As for the band members, John Lydon didn't want to have anything to do with McLaren's project. Sid Vicious went along because of the money he was promised, ditto for Cook and Jones. The three former band members participated in the film without Lydon. Most of the music for the soundtrack was composed by Paul Cook and Steve Jones, Sid Vicious sang vocals on a few tracks but the music was played by Cook and Jones. Watch for Nancy Spurgen, she makes cameos in several of Sid Vicious sketches. Several scenes from the movie that showed up on the double album soundtrack do not appear in the final cut of the film. Maybe one day they'll release a director's cut of the movie. Yes, that is the Great Train Robbery participant Ronnie Biggs playing himself in the movie. He even sings on a couple of tracks and he's not that bad of a lead vocalist.

Recommended for fans of British punk and of the Sex Pistols.

Julien Temple's inaccurate depiction of the rise and fall of British punk pioneers the Sex Pistols is nevertheless an entertaining tale of life in the music industry. Told from the perspective of the group's erstwhile manager Malcolm Mclaren, it charts the creation, development, hyping and subsequent implosion of the Sex Pistols, up to early 1979, when bass player Sid Vicious committed suicide.

Drawing on archive footage (not all of which is authentic), mixed with animation, newsreels and Mclaren's narration - the film is often as haphazard and random as the genre it speaks of, but, bolstered with music by the Sex Pistols (And peculiar partnerships of the group with odd guests, such as Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs), the film trundles along at a cheerful pace.

Much of the film is in exceptionally bad taste (The nude teenager "Sue Catwoman" - whose underwear was visibly chromakeyed in when the censors refused to pass the scene, the pedophile music boss, Martin Boormann singing "Belsen Was A Gas", for example), and its rambling plot bears testimony to the numerous rewites needed over the three years it took to produce, during which time the director was replaced (Russ Meyer was originally to direct), the financial backers changed more than once, the Sex Pistols formally split up, the film was retitled from "Who Killed Bambi?", and Sid Vicious died having (allegedly) killed his girlfriend.

In real terms, the film is not brilliant, and its factual inaccuracies have since been proven in court, but as an artistic statement and a chronicle of the punk scene in London in 1978, it's very enjoyable, and should form part of any serious music-fan's "History" section.

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.