Still Crazy (1998)

‘Hello, Wembley!’

As the great British actor Bill Nighy turned 60 on 12 December 2009, Cillian Donnelly takes the opportunity to examine this sadly little-seen gem, in which Nighy turns in a career-defining performance as Ray Simms, the conceited yet vulnerable former lead singer of 1970s hard rockers, Strange Fruit.

Like many films before it, Still Crazy by Brian Gibson (What’s Love Got To Do With It? (1993), Breaking Glass (1980)) examines male friendship as something that endures over time, but which can also be an endurance.

In the film’s opening we discover the fate of hard rock group Strange Fruit – original singer dead, creative leader bent on self destruction, and the simmering tensions within the band, which cumulates in them splitting up on stage during the high-profile Wisbech Rock Festival.

Without pausing for breath on the back story, we jump-cut 20 years later. The band have gone their separate ways and into mundane jobs, bassist Les Wikes (Jimmy Nail) is a roofer, drummer Beano Baggot (Timothy Spall) works in a garden centre and keyboardist Tony Costello (Stephen Rea) is a condom salesman.

When a chance meeting in Spain with the son of the original promoter of Wisbech spawns the opportunity of a reunion, Costello sets about getting the guys back together with the aid of former manager Karen Knowles (Juliet Aubrey). This would be simple enough, of course, if it wasn’t for all those unresolved resentments still waiting to be aired, and as the band head of for a mini-tour of Holland and Belgium, all the ghosts of the past just can’t keep themselves hidden.

It’s a brief, slender movie, elevated by a brilliant script from Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who effortlessly reprise their trademark mixture of genuine pathos and pitch-perfect comic undercutting perfected with the likes of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Porridge, and uniformly top-notch performances from the leads.

It’s somewhat unfair to single anyone out from the ensemble, but Nighy does deserve a special mention for his deft comic performance as the Coverdale-like singer, whose vanity, insecurity and social inadequacies, as well as his touching vulnerability, is introduced in a brilliant scene where he has to give a speech at his daughter’s wedding. His running tensions with Wikes go on to serve as the main thrust of the (admittedly) threadbare plot.

As well as serving up some choice one-liners, Still Crazy still has much to say about how the past can still intrude on the present, how lasting emotions can sometimes never be resolved and how ludicrous rock music can sometimes be that great redemptive force in all our lives.

All this, plus an oddly affecting cameo from Bruce Robinson and a hilarious running gag about bands named after parts of the body. What more could you ask for?

100 mins.

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