There was always a chance that it was going to be a funny evening when I took my booking reference to the counter of my local cinema to pick up my tickets for the one and only showing of the new Status Quo film, and began with ‘The reference is whiskey – sierra’ in a helpful, phonetic way, only to be asked by the young sales assistant ‘Er, how do you spell sierra?’
I was at the cinema to see ‘Bula Quo!’ the new cinematic vehicle from rockers Status Quo. I’m not a huge fan of the band but enjoyment of their music has seeped into me osmosis-like from my dad, a long-time fan of Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi. However, he wasn’t eager to see the new film so that maybe say something.
With very minimal publicity for the film – the band were on ‘Radio 2’ a while back and some of the songs have been playlisted on the station, but otherwise very little has been pushed in the local or national press or within cinemas – I was surprised to see I wasn’t the only person attending the screening but there were just seven of us.
‘Bula Quo!’ tells the story of the band attending the Fiji leg of their world tour, when they stumble across a local crime lord kidnapping tourists and subjecting them to a game of Russian Roulette. Capturing the footage on their mobile phone and making a fiery escape, a game of cat and mouse ensues between the band and crime lord Wilson (Jon Lovitz) involving several slapstick sequences; Craig Fairbrass, as their tour manager Simon, doing his best Ross Kemp / Vinnie Jones impression in beating up everyone; and Laura Aikman as Caroline, the band’s Fiji representative, getting reluctantly embroiled in the shenanigans. There’s also a journalism-led sub-plot where the words ‘Get the story’ feel as over-used as ‘Old sport’ in the recent Great Gatsby-film.
‘Bula Quo!’ feels like a movie set in an alternative reality, featuring a Status Quo that we know and love but with a more surreal spin. The film kicks off with a stylised old-film re-telling of Fijian history – if their history involved nothing but cannibalism in a 1970s almost-offensive-but-not-quite-way – and the two main members in dodgy moustaches who promptly get eaten. Arriving at the present day we are introduced to the band, with the two leads who feel more like naughty school kids, trying to sneak off. The opening twenty minutes plays a little awkwardly as it can’t decide whether it’s a straight-up concert promo of them playing some of their bigger hits; a display of awkward fan worship as they talk about the band and verbally slap them on the back for being such long-lasting rock gods; or a slapstick collection of comedy scenes.
Once they get past this and into the main plot the film finds its footing. Rossi and Parfitt play distorted versions of themselves and for the most part play the roles well, and the acting doesn’t feel as wooden as you’d expect from musicians whose only experience of acting so far has been on ‘Coronation Street’, but if I’m being honest they’re not the most convincing. Laura Aikman, who I last saw as Lee’s “long-lost daughter” in the hilarious ‘Not Going Out’, gives a character for the younger audience to enjoy and allows for some witty one-liners at the expense of the band. Craig Fairbrass hams it up a lot as the hard-man figure and gets to beat up a lot of people in one of the more unbelievable sides of the distorted image.
‘Bula Quo!’ isn’t going to win any awards. You could drive a tour truck through the plot holes; Lovitz feels more like a malevolent uncle than a crime boss; and there is quite a lot of dodgy dubbing and stunt double work going on. But it does have lots of seeds of humour: a chase scene on a golf course works well and there is a lot of cartoony violence that never really tests its PG certificate. In fact, if there is one thing the film can be accused of, is not going wacky enough. It feels a little like ‘Johnny English Reborn’, but even more repressed, in that they feel like they’re holding back on the comedy. Status Quo feel like they’re up for a laugh and everyone seems to be having such fun, as shown in the film and the out-takes at the end, but they could have dragged more laughs out of it. I laughed out loud maybe twice in the film, and then maybe a little more with the sheer absurdity of it – the humour is more enjoyable than outright laughing – but there were moments that could have been lifted up even more: Parfitt almost gets a running catchphrase at the start as he constantly avoids death; and the age jokes work well.
The film isn’t a particularly lengthy piece of work and one that ends rather suddenly with a closing line that suggests a post-credits scene that never appears. Following a Thunderbirds-style opening credits sequence which summarises what you’re likely to see, the film feels padded out at the end as some of the big scenes from the film are re-shown which feels weird and awkward when you’ve just seen it all.
‘Bula Quo!’ was a fun 75-minutes to spend on a Friday evening. The cast seemed up for anything and the slapstick scenes all worked well but the comedy felt restrained at times. There was plenty of classic and new Quo tunes to please the music fans and the film looking beautiful. Unlike musician-led classics like ‘Slade In Flame’, the level of realism wasn’t particularly high and felt like a surreal twist on the life of a rockstar and a lot of the one-liners were delivered in, let’s say, not exactly the best style. Aikman does get the best line of the movie though and delivers it brilliantly, and also manages to avoid the cliché of the movie relationship.
A scene of the Quo pair emerging from the water Bond-style was perhaps a little too much, though they are fully clothed.
With more humour and a firm pointer that things aren’t meant to be taken too seriously would make scenes like policemen not being able to catch up with a slow-moving train and Rossi and Parfitt fighting off sharks much better and a stronger, more defined ending with the less of the ‘you have been watching’ montage would have made it a more firm and memorable conclusion. And either the cameraman on site or the cinema projectionist needs a word in their ear as I swear some scenes felt out of focus.
I wasn’t expecting much from ‘Bula Quo!’ but it passed my expectations. It was cheesy, surreal, silly and confused, and I’m not sure why it was really made, but it was a fun distraction for the fans, feeling like a muted Mr Bean movie where Mr Bean has become an older rocker. I’ve seen worse films on a far bigger budget.
3/10
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