This is the second ‘rockumentrary’ I am writing about, this just happens to be the first one Julien Temple made about the Sex Pistols…

The film is shot with director Julian Temple at the helm and shows live concert footage and interviews of the Pistols from the rise to the fall. The film was made post Sex Pistols and told from the view point of the Pistols manager ‘Malcom McLaren’ whos position thoughout the film seems to be that the Pistols, and punk rock (as a genre of music) in particular was some form of concoction of his own in order to make “a million pounds”, and this in itself is the ’swindle’.

After watching the film I feel that the doco was overly twisted towards the perspective of McLaren, this is due to several reasons. First and foremost is the fact that he (McLaren) describes himself as the creator of the Pistols though crafty bookings, and describing the Pistols as ‘poor musicians’. I mean Sid wasn’t the greatest gutairist but he had the image and that got him 9/10th’s of the way. And secondly McLaren thought he had this ‘great’ idea to turn a horrible rock band into something super – and in the process scam all the fans and the label executives hoping to make “a million pounds”.

Also what I found a little weird was that Johnny Rotten didn’t appear in interviews etc (obivously appeared in concert footage…) and I later found out that he didn’t want a part of the film because he believed that the film was a personal attack of him by McLauren. I don’t believe that he could be too far wrong there with McLaren saying that he started all this shit and that ‘that’ was the greatest swindle…

I have read mixed reviews of this film on the internets, some say that it’s unentertaining – but for the Pistols fan it’s just one of those movies that you have to see. Even if you don’t like the content (or Malcom………) you can just watch it for the Pistols concert footage and Sid’s rendition of Frank Sinatra’s song “My Way”. Also there are some funny animations in there.