paul2001sw-1 Ian Dury was an unlikely pop star: a survivor of childhood polio, a clever lyricist (though hardly poetical) who was hardly a singer, who made his own form of rock-and-roll, with punk attitude, funky rhythm but also a dash of the English music hall. That said, biopics tend to be boring and formulaic, and it's to the credit of director Mat Whitecross that he tries to avoid the clichéd overcome-troubles-through-talent narrative. Unfortunately, the result is that it often feels there's barely any narrative at all, rather everything is mixed-up together and the sheer improbability of Dury's sudden ascent to fame with his first number one record at the age of 37 is missed. Also, while I have no reason to doubt the portrayal of Dury as a man with a temper, one thing I missed in Andy Serkis' performance was Dury's pervasive and paradoxical sense of cool.

Joris Not the worst biopic I've seen the past few years. Something for the fans of films like The Boat That Rocked, Good Vibrations and CBGB, although it's absolutely not as good as Richard Curtis' tribute to the pirate radio's of the 1960s. If you're into Ian Dury and The Blockheads Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is something you might enjoy. Especially Andy Serkis' performance as Ian Dury, which is spellbinding at certain times. But as with so many biopics, this one also suffers from boring flashbacks, sentimental nostalgia and lack of its own style. The scenes on stage, when Ian is talking to his audience (and the viewers), are probably the only ones that really honour Dury's persona and kookiness. Everything else is conventional cinema accompanied by an awesome punk / new wave soundtrack by The Blockheads.

werefox08 Andy Serkis gives a great performance as the 70s/80s alternative punk psycho...Ian Dury. If only the rest of this movie was up to the standards of Serkis. Sadly its not. It is made in a kind of "experimental" way, with strange and severe flashbacks. The idea was (probably) to make a movie in the style of Ian Dury. I am pretty sure Dury would have hated this. The attempts to make Dury...at times...a regular guy sitting at home with his wife--are simply ridiculous. Doing his biggest commercial success "Hit me With Your Rhythm Stick" in a swimming pool was desperation. It is a movie that is always mis-directed. The great performance by Serkis will ...unfortunately...be forgotten.

Framescourer Any film featuring Andy Serkis is worth investigating. The man's magnetic, assimilating his characters sufficiently to expunge most of himself. He's also very good at swearing. Proper screen swearing is tricky as it requires total annihilation of self-consciousness - Serkis manages to get his Dury to produce profanity that is both rasping and idiomatic.The film itself is a bit irritating, inasmuch as it's rather flat. Serkis aside, the other performances are fine but no more. It moves around trying to give an impression of Dury's relationships and the background to his intense punk behaviour. We don't get a particularly fleshed out impression of the late 1960s - 80s (not least as there's a horrible anachronistic yellow-hatched 1990s 'no-stopping' road marking in shot during a 70s sequence). The montage/stage-show sequences don't tell us much about the man as they are strangely solipsistic to the biopic itself.Of the two British rock biopics released this year, Nowhere Boy is still a more even, detailed and satisfying film than this. 4/10