Prichards12345 Con O'Neill is absolutely superb as Joe Meek, genius-but-disturbed record maestro. His slow descent into darkness is brilliantly captured in this movie, as is his gradual loss of all his friends and associates. Kevin Spacey is also a standout as his financial backer.At one point we see an advertisement phrase "Go to Work On An Egg" - which was also a t.v. advert that legendary comedian Tony Hancock fronted. There are some pretty close parallels between Hancock and Meek - a clever touch.The centre of the movie is really about his relationship with Heinz (J.J. Feild who is also excellent) and his attempts to propel him to pop super-stardom. It's worth pointing out that Heinz's family were deeply unhappy with his portrayal in this movie, stating none of it was true.At times the movie is very funny. Heinz's punch-up with Jess Conrad is hilarious. But overall this is a dark drama that packs a real punch. Even if the movie is fictional it largely sticks to the facts as I understand them. It also uncovers the sleaziness behind the early 60s pop world fantastically well. It's probably isn't a movie for someone just looking for a pleasant two hours of movie-watching, though.

Adam Peters (65%) At fifteen or so minutes in this pushed very few buttons for me, and as I had no idea who Joe Meek actually was, the temptation to give the remaining three quarters a skip and move on passed my mind, but I'm glad that I didn't because this heats up very nicely. Con O'Neill is sublime in the lead role as the hugely hyped-up, at times very angry, yet unquestionably passionate hit music creator during the swinging days of London in the 60's. The backing cast is made up of a host of UK talent, with Kevin Spacey adding even more quality to the production. This may be a bit to clumsily written at times with a script that feels a bit too much like a stageplay rather than a screenplay, but this is still an important piece of well told pop music history.

getcater If he's up there, looking down on the world at forty five revolutions per minute, Joe Meek will undoubtedly have seen this horrible film. Knowing Joe, he probably burst into tears. In fact, it's surprising he didn't manage to engineer a shower of satellite debris to fall upon the collective heads of everyone involved in it.Let's start from the known facts: Joe Meek was a genius. He was also a wayward personality, deeply troubled, a complex and infinitely intriguing human being. That's a tall order for even a decent actor to essay. For a ham like Con O'Neill it's asking way too much. It's hard to believe that there is anyone alive who could look, act and speak less like the vital lead character of this movie. Okay, so one doesn't necessarily expect a perfect Meek lookalike, but some facet of his personality has to come across. Con O'Neill misses his target by a country mile. There is nothing of the real Joe Meek here, just a badly-realised cartoon performance, one-note, manic, utterly shallow.We know from the preserved film and audio of Meek in person that the reality was far more subtle than the brash, shouting, bungling oaf of this movie. The Meek who comes across in the extant archive clips is an apparently mild-mannered, gently spoken individual who betrays no outward sign of the violent emotion of which he was capable. O'Neill plays him as a pilled-up lunatic, hectoring his performers and frantically twiddling knobs in the hope of engineering some audio accident. Sure, Meek had his moments of mania, but to interpret this as his entire personality is a complete misunderstanding of the man. And he was not Welsh. Newent, Meeks' birthplace, is not in Wales. It's in Gloucestershire. So why the Welsh lilt? O' Neill looks and sounds like someone doing a really, really bad impersonation of Rob Brydon. Oh, and Meek would never have said 'whoop-de-doo.' Neither would anyone else back then. It's far too recent. At least he didn't punch the air and shout 'yes' but he might as well have done.This being the central performance, and the entire raison d'être for the movie, it's hard to see past O'Neill's sheer awfulness, and the movie's better aspects are easily overshadowed by this towering piece of monumental miscasting. Any of the other actors here would have made a better Meek. Even, at a pinch, Kevin Spacey, whose performance in The Shipping News was probably a lot closer to the reality of Joe Meek. Spacey is amusing to watch - evidently having been briefed that the movie was a comedy - but better by a long, long way than anyone else on show here is JJ Feild as Heinz Burt. Voice, appearance and demeanour all agree exactly with what we know of Heinz from the archive. James Corden won't disappoint, if you're expecting his standard fat, charmless git. He can't do anything else, evidently. And he looks nothing like Clem Cattini, either.After all this awfulness, the film's period atmosphere is surprisingly good, with Meek's studio flat realised in fine detail, and the contemporary footage integrates almost seamlessly with the new material. One might quibble at anachronisms like a 1970s Gretsch guitar, but generally the production design is top notch and really captures the feel of early 60s Britain. But all this effort is reduced to mere window dressing, turd-polish on a film that's deficient in so many other departments.If Joe Meek were given a copy of this film on DVD, he'd smash it with a hammer. Then he'd throw the director, and Con O'Neill down the stairs. Meek's is a great story, shot through with incident, intrigue, emotion and genuine human drama. Telstar the movie is a bit like Joe's original off-key demo of his classic instrumental: a wayward shot at something that could be done much, much better.One star - and that's ten stars too many.

zoltan-22 Joe Meek was a genius, he was a pioneer of his field. His influence on pop music is still discernible after almost 50 years. Alone Telstar was a breathtaking creation, completely different from the music of its time and from anything else before. This is what made Joe Meek famous. When I first heard Telstar, I was astonished and thougth that this music is not from this planet (just as Telstar was off planet). I assume this movie is watched by people who felt the same and recognized the genius of Joe Meek. However, this movie shows Joe Meek as a homosexual lunatic involved in all kind of conflicts. Many people have similar fate but nobody would make a movie of them. In case of Joe Meek all the negative events shown might have been reality, nevertheless Joe Meek was Telstar, The Tornados, Heinz, The Honeycombs and other successful, great music productions. Why would one wash dirty laundry when there are so many beautiful things to show? This movie is the same kind of miscarriage as Ray. Disappointing, despite of great acting.