Ever since Hugh Grant and his floppy fringe bumbled through Four Weddings And A Funeral, screenwriter Richard Curtis hasn't just been taking the nation's romantic pulse – he has been encouraging it to race out of control.

Wet Wet Wet laid siege to the top of the UK charts thanks to Curtis's popular blend of sentimentality and earthy humour, followed five years later by the fairy-tale amour of Notting Hill, starring Julia Roberts.

In Christmas 2003, we swooned to the multi-faceted Love Actually, which Curtis also directed, his third collaboration with lucky talisman Grant.

Now, the writer-director takes the helm for this nostalgic tale of friendship between the members of a pirate radio station, broadcasting from the North Sea in the mid-'60s.

His favourite leading man is nowhere to be seen, nor for that matter are the big laughs and gooey outpourings of longing.

The year is 1966, a golden era for rock'n'roll in this country, but BBC radio plays a mere 45 minutes of pop music a day.

Thus, about 25 million listeners tune into pirate radio stations, which devote every waking (and sleeping) minute to music.

One such station is Radio Rock, under the captainship of Quentin.

The DJs are a motley crew of misfits with one thing in common: A passion for vinyl.

They include star deejay Gavin, US rival The Count, sarcastic and cruel Dave, love-sick Simon, sex god Midnight Mark, goofy Angus 'The Nut' Nutsford, newsreader On-The-Hour John and the aptly named Thick Kevin.

The Boat That Rocked certainly rocks and rolls to a thumping soundtrack which includes The Beach Boys, Jeff Beck, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones and The Who.

However, the script springs a leak early on as Curtis attempts to juggle too many thinly sketched characters and gradually loses ballast under the weight of its own unfulfilled ambition.

As usual, Nighy pilfers most of the chuckles as a dapper man of loose morals who views Carl's expulsion for smoking cigarettes and drugs as "spectacular!".

Subtlety tumbles overboard as the battle between government and Radio Rock intensifies, culminating in a bizarre action-oriented finale reminiscent of Titanic, albeit on a budget.

The Boat That Rocked (Cert 15 for swearing and sex) is out now. Directed by Richard Curtis, it stars Bill Nighy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans and Nick Frost and tells the tale of the pirate radio station, Radio Caroline. And our reviewer's verdict? The script springs a leak early on and gradually loses ballast