Review: Since the dawn of Punk there has been many names that are most synonymous with the genre and Sid Vicious was definitely one of them. This film follows the tragic down fall of the legendary Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his accomplice Nancy Spungen. Anyone who knows anything about the Sex Pistols and Sid & Nancy will have some problems with this film due to it's inaccuracies and over the top characters. Most of those people will either hate this film or enjoy it for what it is, which is a story of 2 punks in romance that leads to their demise.
I will touch on the parts that myself as well as others have had a problem with about this film. First off most of the characters were a little more over the top and more cartoon like in the way they acted. Sid was portrayed throughout the film more as his stage presence than how he was really off stage. Which did not completely bother me due to the context of the film and what it was going for. Also the Johnny Rotten quite a bit off from how he really is, except for his stage presence which wasn't bad. The only character I am not sure how accurate it was Nancy because I could see her being as annoying as she was on screen. Other than those things I had no other problems with the characters.
Even though this film does have a few short coming, it still does stand strong to me as a great film that does show the dark side of punk that is not often shown. Also it does have a very strong performance from Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious. Despite if you are a fan of this film or not one thing that I think all can agreee is that this film has one hell of a punk soundtrack! If you have not seen this film and you are into punk music and romeo & juliet-esque films than this is the film you really need to see! Overall this is a pretty cool film about a legendary couple of punks!
One thing there is no debate about is that this release of Sid & Nancy looks fantastic! The print they used in the transfer is cleaned up, but still has all it's grain intact. The colors are a bit drab but that I think is mainly due to the actual look of the film. Also the audio is great, but sadly you only get the choice of an English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and not the choice of the original stereo recording. Along with the film you do get a couple special features that aren't very amazing but they work fine.
-Daniel "Damnation" Lee
Director: Alex Cox
Genre: Drama/Music
Blu-ray Release Year: 2011
Theatrical Release Year: 1986
Time Length: 113 mins.
Company: MGM Home Entertainment
Website:
www.mgm.com
