Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody 2018

Directed by Bryan Singer (4 of the X-Men franchise, Apt Pupil and one of my favourite films The Usual Suspects), at least until he was fired and replaced in the last few weeks of filming by Dexter Fletcher.

Bohemian Rhapsody is a foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music. We start in 1970 with Farrokh Bulsara (who quite early on changes his name to Freddie Mercury) working as a baggage handler at Heathrow airport. At a nightclub he meets guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor and forms the band Queen. We follow their successes and failures up to the Live Aid concert in 1985.

I want to start this review by saying how much I loved this film. I am a massive Queen fan so this was 141 minutes of awesome. It would have been nearly impossible for a film of this man’s life story and this band’s music to have been made and me not like it…. Now that’s the fan-boying out of the way. let’s get down to the actual film.

Rami Malek (Mr Robot) plays Freddie Mercury and I thought he did a great job. I believed all the emotions. The happiness, the pain and confusion he showed Freddie experiencing throughout this film as he tried to find his place in life when he was off stage. Gwilym Lee (Brian May), Ben Hardy (Roger Taylor) and Joseph Mazzello (John Deacon) were fine, they were there as a backdrop really as (quite rightly) the screen time was heavily given over to Freddie and the music of Queen.

I thought the direction and look of the film was sleek, probably sleeker then it needed to be as we go from one stage show to another. If these stages were meant to be in dive bars and shabby nightclubs of the mid 70’s, when the band were trying to make a name for themselves, then bars and nightclubs took a real nosedive in the 80’s because they were a far cry from the dumps I would drink in when I was trying my luck to get served in my underage drinking years.

I have noticed a shift in opinion to this film. From the mostly high praise in the first week of release to much colder reviews since. This isn’t much of a surprise as the first weeks viewers (much like me) would have been Queen fans and as I said earlier it doesn’t miss a beat as we go from hit to hit. You can’t help but smile and tap your foot. I thought after I saw it on opening night that if you were not such a big Queen fan then you could have issues with the film.

This film’s classification was the biggest problem it had. It was rated 12A and Freddie’s life was anything but 12A so there were huge parts that were glossed over. He seemed like a passenger through the second act of of film as it tried to show him first come to terms with his sexuality, then it seemed like they blamed that sexuality on the breaking up of the band in the early 80’s. His (literal) descent into a gay club basement, supposedly his darker years, while we hear Another One Bites The Dust being played is a disservice to Mercury, Queen and Queen fans – in my view, Freddie coming to terms with every part of his life was central to what made him the great showman he was.

Brian May and Roger Taylor had a lot of input into this film and I understand they want to protect the memory of their friend and the band’s legacy but there were too many moments that needed more depth to them but were brushed under the 12A rug for me to appreciate the non-musical parts of this movie.

But all that being said, there was cool song after cool song after cool song. The brilliantly good music throughout the film and the final scene of the Live Aid concert which made me more emotional then any film I think I’ve ever seen had me leaving the cinema with a massive smile on my face. So despite its flaws I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching this and will absolutely buy it when it is released on Blu Ray.