GROUND breaking, superstar DJ loses his hearing, goes mad, recovers his brain cells and returns to the decks before disappearing who knows where. You'd think you would've heard about such a story, and you're probably right, but It's All Gone Pete Tong professes to be a biopic of one Frankie Wilde (Paul Kaye), DJ legend.
And it's pretty good, plotting a crafty course between This Is Spinal Tap, Human Traffic, 24 Hour Party People, Trainspotting and Immortal Beloved.
At its core is a sterling turn from Paul Kaye who cuts an all too believable dash as the madcap Brixton boy who fuses punk rock manners with the one-love euphoria of house music and makes a name for himself as the king of dance music's party isle, Ibiza. After 11 years at the top, Frankie lives a lifestyle that would make Caligula blush. He's got the vacant model trophy wife (Kate Magowan), a kid that's clearly not his (except he is, being played by Paul's boy Geffen Strummer Kaye), a party-central villa, a drink problem and a cocaine habit serviced by his very own (imaginary!) giant coke badger - complete with snot encrusted nostrils and milky dribble.
Mmm, nice.
The bubble bursts though with Frankie midway through making an album with a pair of Austrian rock heroes. His manager Max (Mike Wilmot) is beside himself as it becomes clear that Frankie is deaf. Stone deaf. The wife leaves him. He's washed up, boozed up, coked up and proceeds to mess himself up even further barricaded in his luxury home.
Finally he seeks help and rediscovers a lust for life in the company of lip reading tutor Penelope (Beatriz Batarda). He learns more about his other senses, finds out how to feel the beat, picture the sound and, ultimately, DJ again. One great show and he's out. Gone. Far away. A full scale mental, spiritual, emotional, physical, holistic journey. The perfect house tune.
Writer-director Michael Dowse has fashioned an uncomfortably funny film that's as dark as it is manic and as tender as it is brutal. In Kaye's hands Wilde is hardly a sympathetic figure, yet at his most pathetic he transcends pity to emerge as an agreeable human being.
The soundtrack is perfectly pitched while the original score, by 808 State's Graham Massey, actually moves mainstream dance music into unexpectedly fruitful areas using elements of rock, jazz and a Latin vibe to augment the all-pervasive house beat.
It's All Gone Pete Tong (and, yes, the Radio One DJ does appear) could so easily have been Kevin & Perry Go Larger, but it isn't. It's a very human story told with real swagger, outrageous humour and more than a touch of genuine class.
See it at UCI, Odeon
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