I last saw this movie when it came out in the mid-1980s, and as a long-time aficionado of punk rock, one had to say that 'Sid and Nancy' was awful. Irredeemably awful. I saw it again just last night, and it was worse. Over the decades since Sid kicked Nancy's bucket and then his own, several documentaries, unearthed footage and books of reminiscences have strengthened our acquaintance with the 'punk rock' story and its myriad sub-plots. However, as the director and co-writer of 'Sid and Nancy', Alex Cox would have known the entire story back in the early 1980s. He just didn't want to film it. Instead we get a wildly inaccurate phantasmagoria starring two painfully overacting hams who look several years older than the historical characters they are meant to be portraying. The entire English punk scene is pulped down into a bunch of exaggeratedly lurching, moronic and pettily destructive idiots falling over repeatedly and making life difficult for themselves and others. What about the intelligence and originality of the Buzzcocks or the Banshees? What about the Clash's social conscience? What about the Sex Pistols' media-savvy and musical talent? Check 'The Punk Rock Movie'; Sid actually could play, albeit in a basic 'Dee Dee Ramone' manner, and if you'd like to listen to the live bootlegs, they bear little resemblance to the incompetent racket served up by the 'Sex Pistols' in 'S & N'. Moreover, couldn't Cox have staged the 'Pistols' English gigs with an audience who doesn't look like it was straight out of 1984? Check the half-mohawks and the 'positive punk' girls' puffed-up hair. Almost as bad as Spike Lee's 'Summer of Sam'. While we're at it, why are there no swastikas? So what if Alex Cox didn't want them in his precious movie; in 1976-77 they were right there in front of everybody. Again, check the footage. Sid Vicious made the swastika t-shirt an icon; he pretty much lived in one. You might as well try to do a bio-pic about the Grateful Dead and leave out the peace symbol. Look, as you can tell, I could easily spend 10,000 words telling you how insultingly bad, stupid and dishonest this movie is. Maybe one day I will, but suffice to say that with its focus on two of the most obnoxious, universally disliked and talent-free members of the 1970s punk movement it is a totally charm-free excursion into bio-pic territory. It is also intolerably bad history.
Review of Sid and Nancy
