Short(ish) review #11

Sid and Nancy (1986) - "Love Kills."

The story of a troubled and doomed love relationship, filled with sex and drugs. Still, it's a better love story than Twilight. A lot of people may hate me for that comment. Well, get over it!!!

Sid and Nancy is a morbid look at the destructive relationship between Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight trilogy, Leon and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)) and Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb). As you may know, Sid Vicious was the bassist in the British punk rock band the Sex Pistols. Initially he shows no interest in her, until she buys him heroin. However, their relationship causes rifts to form within the band and, as you may know, the band split up after their failed tour of America. Vicious decides to pursue an unsuccessful solo-career, but his addiction grows. One morning, Nancy is found stabbed to death in a bathroom and Sid is arrested for her murder.

In my opinion, Gary Oldman is one of the greatest and most respected actors alive at the minute. He plays such a variety of different characters, such as a psychotic corrupt police officer in Leon, the definitive portrayal of a vampire in Dracula, the man responsible for the greatest assassination in history in JFK and the calm quiet figure of George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Well, this is him at the beginning of his career. This is his breakthrough performance.

People have acknowledged that, in real life, Sid Vicious was a bit of an arse (to put it kindly). He was supposedly a terrible bass player. Vicious only performed one of the tracks on their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols; it was mostly former bass player Glen Matlock. They have also accused director Alex Cox of making Sid lovable and sympathetic, taking the edge off him. For example, the real-life Sid used to wear a t-shirt with a Swastika on it, whereas in the film he's wearing a hammer and sickle. Cox faced criticism from Sex Pistols lead man Johnny Rotten, mainly because he used, rather than him, Joe Strummer as a point of reference. Yep, the lead singer from the Clash. Rotten called it " mere fantasy...the Peter Pan version".

After watching this, I did go and listen to the actual version of Sid singing I Wanna Be Your Dog by The Stooges, drunk out of his head. It was either that or The X Factor and even though it sounded terrible it was better than most of the idiots who appear on that show. The film also features a scene of Vicious performing his version of Frank Sinatra's My Way in Paris (performed by Oldman).

Despite all the negative comments and softness of the film, you have to watch it simply for Gary Oldman's performance. Similarly to Christian Bale in The Machinist, Oldman lost a large amount of weight to play the role, so much that he ended up in hospital. Oldman makes Vicious understandable and this allows the audience to get inside the relationship.  I'm sure you would not have recognised it was him before reading this.