It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is the Sex Pistols in their own four-letter words, probably a better way to review punk rock than in Malcolm McLaren's self-regarding version of the story, filmed by the same director twenty years earlier.It is hard to know who could be shocked by this outpouring of meaningless blasphemy and violent rebellion against nothing very much. Yet many people were deeply outraged by the first of the punk rockers. A Welsh town tried to ban them. The giant record company EMI felt obliged to fire them. And the veteran TV presenter Bill Grundy wrecked his career by failing to restrain their foul language on a chat-show.All of this was music to the ears of McLaren, who had been casting around for a new brand of youth-protest to replace the fading hippie culture in which he himself had been so immersed a few years earlier. Something harsher was needed, something with spikes and swastikas, laced with heroin.The answer was Punk, perhaps the most effective four-letter word of them all, literally impossible to utter without anger and hate. The band itself is awash with hate, and self-hate, at its most unmistakable in the Sid Vicious interview, where he says he wishes he was underground. (A few months later, he was.) Julien Temple's treatment has been praised for its subtle interleaving of newsreel to provide the social background that was supposed to justify the excesses of Punk. Personally, I can't see what's so subtle about it, though the apparently irrelevant clips from Olivier's Richard III may be putting out a message too subtle for most of us.Still, the authorised (socialist) version of 70's England is the main theme - an oppressed working class, ripe for revolution. Johnny Rotten probably didn't realize he was revealing the flaw in the argument when he says "We don't know who 'working class' means any more." Indeed not. It used to mean manual workers and their families. By the 70's, it had swung round to mean almost everything other than this - a rentamob of full-time anarchists, unemployables, illegal immigrants and striking students and professors. (Johnny and Sid first met in higher education.) In the end, the sheer nihilism of the subject makes it monotonous, and it doesn't help that all four of the band are actually named John, so we often don't know who is describing whom. Like all revolutionaries, they disagree about everything, except their intense loathing for Sid's girlfriend Nancy Spungen. ("Never felt such negative energy"). Still, there is a nice touch, arriving at JFK, where the customs are determined to do a full drug-search... until they take a look at Sid's underwear, and mysteriously decide to wave them through after all.

i never saw a documentary that so well reflects the artistic values of its subject. so well merging history and art into a very tasty presentation.back in the late seventies, the sEx pIstOLs caused a true pop revolution in england as well as in Europe. in those days the WHirLwinDs of the sixties had slowed down, while the industry kept on GoiNg. It all resulted in pop music mostly lacking FIrE.we all know that sEx pisToLs' music carried lots of fire. what Americans may not appreciate, is that this fire comes from a strong social undertone. the group really represented ENglAnd's lowest educated, socially backward youngsters, with almost no prospect for a proper job + a decent futUrE.that's what the sEx pIsToLs sing about -- love + sex hardly make a topic with them. their image and outfit are quite in line - we all know their torn-up clothing, their safety pins, and their FoUl language. called P U N K. It's all there in this gReAt documentary.

I titled this "documentary," although it's so much more. In retrospect England was an empire in precipitous decline. Mortgages were extended to 40 years leaving nothing to posterity. Immigrants - legal and illegal - were taking work cheap and crowding out the council estates, thus leaving youth disaffected with no hope. The Sex Pistols voice that deep discontent, so the Callahan Labour government ginned up a campaign of 2 Minutes Hate as a temporary distraction from his evil party's stupid policies. I was caught up in it too.However, in 1985 I bought a copy of Never Mind TheBollocks. After listening to it enough times to decipher the lyrics, I was blown away! No wonder the government had to shut them up, the Pistols pulled no punches - calling the government a fascist regime was simply going too far. Well, God bless these lads.This film paints the despair of four down and out, yet very real people. I'd buy the fellows a round any time. They are genuine, no phoniness whatsoever. The best scenes are when the band hurled green on the hook-nosed heroin addict from the New Musical Express who was responsible for starting the media's hate campaign. And also the scene during the TV interview with the totally forgettable Bernard Whathisname. The lecherous host came on to one of their fans, so Glen called him a dirty old man. You could see this lilylivered coward blanch with fear, and cringe as he called for a commercial break.The Sex Pistols proved to the world that if you have something to say, then set it to 3 chord rock and proclaim it loudly!

Twenty years after the release of "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle", Julien Temple's weird, incoherent mockumentary about the Sex Pistols, another film about the short-lived but groundbreaking 70's punk rock band, from the same filmmaker, first saw the light of day. Unlike its predecessor, "The Filth and the Fury" can actually be classified as a documentary. I had never heard of this one by the time I first saw "Swindle", but saw both of them (I think twice each) in 2006. This month, I've revisited both films. The first of the two went way downhill for me with my last viewing, whereas this one, which I always thought was the stronger of the two, certainly didn't. It seems my opinion of this 2000 documentary hasn't changed.Temple's two Sex Pistols films tell a different side of the story. "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" tells the band's manager, Malcolm McLaren's side of the story. This follow-up focuses on the point of view of the band members. Frontman John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten), guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and original bass player Glen Matlock (featured in silhouette form) give viewers an insight on their beginnings, how the band formed, their experiences and the impact they had during their time together (which obviously included a lot of controversy), and their breakup. They also contradict McLaren's claims about the band. Lots of archive footage is also featured, including clips from "Swindle" and interviews with the band's late second bass player, Sid Vicious.This film isn't exactly perfect. A lot of the archive footage is shown as we hear the band members talking, and it can be hard to pay attention to both at the same time. Clips like the Shakespeare ones are also unnecessary. Maybe the documentary could have used a more down-to-earth director. However, other than that, I don't have too many complaints. It's still a very interesting piece if you're a Sex Pistols fan, and much more believable than what McLaren says in this film's predecessor. Some good footage is featured here, and the band members have some fascinating things to say. Of course, several Pistols songs are featured as well (at least partially). Like "Swindle", "The Filth and the Fury" has problems with the way it's put together, but it's definitely more coherent, and I've always found it easier to pick up what is said in this film than I have with what is said in the 1980 mockumentary.Comparing Julien Temple's two Sex Pistols films, and the two different sides of the story they show, I would say the band members have a much stronger case than their manager. It seems to me that the first film of the two is pretty much nonsense, with nothing gripping or too memorable. This second film, on the other hand, is an insightful documentary about the controversial band, with some poignant moments. In "Swindle", you don't see McLaren crying over anything, do you? However, in this film, that's just what John Lydon does while talking about Sid Vicious at one point! So, overall, "The Filth and the Fury" is a well done, insightful film about a groundbreaking band, and I recommend it for any Pistols fan. Unlike its predecessor, one can watch this film for more than just entertainment, though it can be good for that as well. No wonder it's more popular than the disjointed mess that came before it.