Before Bruce Willis could Live Free and Die Hard, Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy defined it. Sid was a bassist for the punk group the Sex Pistols and decided to break away, following the advice of Nancy, and try to go solo. Instead of fame and fortune, the couple ended up going on a downward spiral to a drug riddled ending that is both sad and tragic.
Director Alex Cox did a fantastic job in telling the tragic love story of these two severely messed up people. His flow of the story from nothing to everything and slowly back down to absolute zero was done so meticulously that you forget the two leads were actors. Cox spent enough time establishing the relationship between Sid and Nancy that when it came time for Sid to decide between the band or Nancy it was quite believable. That was key for this movie to work, as that’s the turning point of the entire story.
As for the overall story, nothing seemed left out and, more importantly, nothing felt fabricated. Certainly the real life tragic journey of these two probably was a lot more vicious than the movie could tell, but it had to be damn close.
Of course, getting the right actors to take those lead roles was key for this movie to work. Hiring a very young Gary Oldman to play Sid Vicious was perfect. Oldman, a relative unknown at the time, hit a home run as the obnoxious, unreasonable bassist. He brought unpredictable passion to his character and just absolutely knocked the role out of the ballpark. As for Nancy, Chloe Webb played a perfect drug addict who misled the drugged out Vicious into his ultimate demise. She was loud and pretty much insane, which is completely opposite of her role in Twins. Anyway, they made Alex Cox’s film work frightfully well.
The movie can be tough at times to watch, especially when the couple is at their worst, but the journey pays off in the end. Vicious and Nancy led a fast, loose life that was beautifully, and horribly, portrayed onscreen. If you haven’t seen this before then you should check it out. While you’re at it, you may want to pick up Wired (John Belushi’s story), which is in the same vein as Sid & Nancy.
Anyway, the real reason why you’re reading this review is for the Blu-ray review of it. To be honest, Fox’s Blu-ray re-releases have been mixed quality at best. Movies like Rain Man turned out low to mid quality. While others such as Alien Anthology have been among the best released. In other words, you really don’t have any idea how the transfer is going to come out until the Blu-ray is released. With that said, Sid & Nancy was transferred well. It had no graininess in it or color banding issues, but it did have an issue with artifacts. You’ll see black and white pops here and there on the Blu-ray. It’s not distracting, but if you’re looking for them then you’ll find them.
The audio is potentially the best part of the release, as it comes in 5.1 DTS-HD. You’ll get a full force of punk music blaring through your speaker setup, which is great for a story about a punk music star. The audio and dialogue sound very cleaned up, which leads me to believe that some care and love went into the transfer.
One final note about the quality, the film is displayed in Widescreen 1.85:1 and spans the entire screen (no black bars). Good stuff.
As for the special features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– For the Love of Punk
– Junk Love
These are two good featurettes on the film, the story and the actual people. The featurettes have great interviews with cast, crew, music editors and people close to the couple. They compliment the feature quite well. Do I wish there were more features? Yes, but the two provided are quite good.