Jacob Slater as Paul Cook, Anson Boon as Johnny Rotten, Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, Christian Lees as Glen Matlock.
Jacob Slater as Paul Cook, Anson Boon as Johnny Rotten, Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, Christian Lees as Glen Matlock.
Opinion by Karl Puschmann
Karl Puschmann is Culture and entertainment writer for the New Zealand Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
The first published review of Pistol, Disney+'s fast-paced biographical dramedy about the infamous punk band Sex Pistols, was brutally scathing.
"The most disrespectful s*** I've ever had to endure," John Lydon fumed when talking about the series to the UK's Sunday Times newspaper. He then promptly took his former SexPistols bandmates to court in an ultimately futile attempt to sabotage the show by blocking the series from using the gloriously raucous and dangerous music they created together in the late 70s.
That the famously prickly frontman, more commonly known by his stage name Johnny Rotten, is not a fan of the series or that even now, decades later, the Pistols are still squabbling between themselves should surprise no one. Chaos, inner, outer and all-consuming, was quite literally their brand.
Before the Sex Pistols there was The Swankers; Christian Lees as Glen Matlock, Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, Dylan Llewellyn as Wally Nightingale.
Pistol, which is streaming from Tuesday on Disney+, is based on guitarist Steve Jones' rock n' roll memoir Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol. As such it focuses on his version of the many notorious events that were either instigated by or followed the eternally volatile band during their brief but hugely influential three-year tenure.
While Jones isn't the first name you think of when you hear Sex Pistols - that honour has to go to Rotten - or even the second - that'd be bassist Sid Vicious - it was arguably his band. He formed it, he attracted the Svengali-like attentions of impresario-turned-band-manager Malcolm McLaren and he articulated their mission statement, drunkenly telling music mag The NME, "we're not into music, we're into chaos", after a triumphantly violent, early show.
Maisie Williams as Pamela Rooke in Pistol.
So if anyone has authority to speak on the group, he does. And let's be fair, Rotten is not generally known for liking things. Although his portrayal here as a twitchy, bug-eyed, disagreeable Gollum-like figure probably didn't endear him to it. That said, actor Anson Boon's performance as Rotten is uncanny in capturing the singer's menacing charisma and unsettling general vibe.
Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 127 Hours) brings the full force of his stylistic flair to the series and keeps things moving at a blistering pace. While it rips through the Pistols' story with all the frenetic energy of one of their songs, it doesn't fully succeed in capturing the confrontational anarchy of the band at their best.
Sydney Chandler as Chrissie Hynde and Toby Wallace as Steve Jones in Pistol.
Episode one focuses on Jones' traumatic upbringing, the formation of a band as an escape from grim reality and a grimmer future and his fateful meeting with McLaren after being busted trying to nick clothes from SEX, the infamous fashion boutique McLaren ran with his former partner Vivienne Westwood. It's episode two where it really kicks off after a misunderstanding on McLaren's part leads to the wrong John joining the band as their new frontman.
With the antagonistic Rotten recruited into the ranks, the tension between all four members constantly simmering and a healthy lack of musical talent the band were ready to not just take on the world, but irreversibly change it.
Without exception, the performances are all great. As Steve Jones, Toby Wallace has the right mix of attitude and vulnerability and as already stated Boon is a brilliant facsimile of Rotten's real deal persona. Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams is fearless as model, actress and SEX shopkeeper Pamela Rooke and Sydney Chandler is also noteworthy in her portrayal as love interest Chrissie Hynde, who of course would find fame with The Pretenders. But it's Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Love, Actually) who steals the show as the pompously highfalutin and manipulative visionary Malcolm McLaren.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Malcolm McLaren and Talulah Riley as Vivienne Westwood in Pistol, the series based on the story of The Sex Pistols.
The show is slick and watchable. Sex Pistols superfans will have a hard time resisting the urge to bore their viewing partner with factoids about every background character. I know I did ...
But is slick and watchable appropriate for a series about four gobby anarchists who provoked the status quo so much with their very existence that physical threats and violence became their constant companions? For a show about one of the most important punk bands of all time, there's very little that's actually punk about it.
Jacob Slater as Paul Cook, Anson Boon as Johnny Rotten, Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, Christian Lees as Glen Matlock.
It all feels too ... clean, and there are an awful lot of wordy and lengthy monologues, especially in the early episodes, that just don't feel true to how people actually speak and certainly don't feel authentic to anything these particular people would have said ever.
Yes, biopics have to be given a runway's worth of leeway but in this instance, any inkling of fiction punctures the vibe like a safety-pin piercing the fabric of a shabby jacket. All the dank and griminess replaced with a sanitised glamour.
In other words, you never feel like they mean it, man.
If you don't know the Sex Pistols story then Pistol is bound to be both eye-opening and revelatory. If you do, well, it's still entertaining but you may leave with the feeling you've been cheated.
