Sid and Nancy (1986)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

As a big fan of Alex Cox's "Repo Man", I came into "Sid and Nancy" with some high hopes, all of which were dashed by the film itself.Rather than giving the audience a clear understanding of the culture in which the protagonists are rebelling against, as is the case with Otto in early-80's southern California in "Repo Man", we're thrown into mid-70's England with absolutely no context whatsoever. It's a shame, for one because it should be easier to do so in a film grounded in reality as opposed to one grounded in science fiction. Secondly, the Sex Pistols, despite their brief existence and limited output, were one of the most influential bands of all-time and it feels like a real waste to not delve into what exactly made them so influential.So what are we left with? Well, the film is titled "Sid and Nancy", not "The Story of the Sex Pistols" or anything like that, so we have the tale of a toxic, abusive relationship. Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen were not Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers kept separate by forces beyond their control, but a couple of junkies who enabled their poor behavior and likely contributed to each other's early demises.Gary Oldman, as usual, is terrific as Vicious and appears as nearly a dead ringer for the departed musician. His performance, along with some inspired uses of various cinematic techniques and strong visual storytelling, are really the only redeeming factors of the movie. If only the rest of it were as strongly cast as Oldman, but that isn't the case. Chloe Webb is shrill and grating as Spungen and is just a chore to have to behold, but I'm not sure how much of that falls on the actress and how much of it falls on the character. Similarly, Andrew Schofield is a bit too pudgy as Johnny Rotten and thus difficult to believe. It's said that Tim Roth was originally offered that part (and like Oldman he would have made for a great dead ringer for Rotten), but turned it down due to not wanting to take part in a film that depicted such recent history. Given how the movie turned out, it's safe to say that Mr. Roth made the right decision in not being involved with this project.Ultimately, as I said before, the film is about watching a toxic relationship slowly deteriorate to the worst possible conclusion. Aside from Oldman's performance and some inventive visual and cinematic techniques, I didn't like this one and I really can't recommend it.

Sid Vicious was the bass player of the Sex Pistols. One problem: He couldn't play one note.In a nod to the inexplicable modern popularity of reality TV though, it still didn't stop him from becoming a star. Mainly, because he was a walking car crash.Nancy Sturgeon did even less. She was his American girlfriend, a passably attractive blonde,with a hair-trigger temper. She became a famous celebrity, as well.Why, though?Both were drug-addled losers, who routinely broke the law, abused themselves and each other, not to their penchant for being mention hedonistic masochists. They spent the last few months of their pathetic existences as high as the Moon in a filthy hotel room, before dying in ignominious circumstances.So, what makes them such a notorious couple, that they're on the names of the lips of most of that generation, and even having a film based on their squalid, short lives now?I have no idea.One thing I AM sure of is most of their antics seem like child's play in comparison to what some of we see from today's batch of Z- listers. What was front page news in the late 70's/ early 80's is pretty much par for the cause in the noughties.That's... That's quite depressing really.I think I need to go and lie down, now.Oh, and the film itself is pretty good.It was worth the wait to find that out, huh? 6/10

In Sid and Nancy, writer and director, Cox deploys an arsenal of events in the making of the morbid reality of life and death of the ever so distinguished British glamour punk-rock most tragic couple Sid and Nancy. Cox rendition of Sid and Nancy is perhaps the most subtle work of art that truly highlighted the story of the destructive pair through a stimulating concept of humanity from the threshold of the former Sex Pistol's bass player who was famously known for his wild and irrefutable rowdy antics. Played by Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious together with Chloe Webb who took over the role of young schizophrenic Nancy, displayed a body of electrifying screen play in depicting this heartfelt, sad and treacherous love and tragedy of the young couple. An Oscar deserving Oldman gave an eerie resemblance of Sid Vicious enigma as a young wild child who at the tender age of 19 has managed to squeeze 4 lifetimes of revolt and blackball in just 12 months streak as the bassist of Sex Pistol's becoming legendary for being the first to rebel and the first to die. In our desperate attempts to believe there was nothing good in their lives and nothing good will ever come if we care to give them a moment of our time, Cox defeat our ideology by infusing the couple with a sense of humanity, rare and momentary instances of love that we so wanted to believe never existed in the couples misadventures. Instead of giving us the symbolic bedlams of drugs, violence and anarchy in the greater pretext of ten folds, Sid and Nancy simultaneously maintains a small edge of altruism that leaves behind a greater impact on the viewers rather than all the gory lineage that they were famously known for.Sid and Nancy keeps a religiously close track to the tales of the revolting and outrageous adventures of the pair as we get to witness the violent streaks between the two, Sid's infamous flesh mutilating escapades and the famous Chelsea Hotel room fire ignited by the two, which is beautifully interlaced with legendary Sex Pistols concerts, the era of their falling right up to the unfortunate passing of Nancy Spungen and Sid's arrest in New York.Here, you witness a couple who throughout their deteriorating cataclysm has many times no matter how small an effort did try to set their lives straight in their otherwise chaotic structure. Some of the most prevalent moments were initially seen at the pub where a a moment of solid poignancy managed to eternally set the tone of dismissal apart. Sid's preliminary despise to the American groupie turns into sympathy after witnessing an assault bestowed on her shortly after she was ripped off and bushed whacked. Sidney who saw the whole scenario from afar, finds Nancy sobbing outside and offers her some comfort through one of the most eccentric ways known by human kind. We also note Nancy's classic line here and one that notes the many paradoxes of the couple 'Never trust a junkie' ideology. It was a heartbreaking realisation to see the novelty of the beginning of a tragic tale of love and death that first started with less to no interest in the early providence to evolving as the final shot of a Russian Roulette kind of game. An absolute masterpiece out of the rather impressive vault of Cox, he ends the flick in the most admirable ways by refuting the question 'Did Sid truly kill Nancy' dead-wringer that still lacks an answer 3 decades after her death in room 100, Chelsea Hotel. Sid Vicious retires from life in a beautiful manner shortly after giving us his admirable Pogo dance before he escapes into the ulterior setting of life in the other dimension, safe and secured in the hands of his soulmate, Nancy Spungen.Honourable mentions for the rest of the cast members who put up an effective work of art, passion and charisma to bring this sad tale to life. It took me so long to get to this movie but after watching it once, i watched it 3 times in one week. All humans can be animals when there's a desire to act up to the dark sides of our existence and for the likes of Sid and Nancy, it becomes a label and void of a generation. When someone finally comes through and give them the credits they deserve in a less beastly ways it's not only brilliant, it's honourable. Everyone was reckless once but not everyone lived to pay their dues, for the rest of us, we died too young.

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.