The Movie:

Vinyl shows its meager budget with a flat cinematography that would work better for a TV film. It also contains equally flat writing that includes far too much on-the-nose dialogue and plot contrivances. What it does have is buckets of genuine charm, and that's what pulls it up a tick from being as a complete waste of time.

The film is loosely based on an infamous 2004 hoax when a washed-up middle-aged Welsh rock band named The Alarm showed UK music fans that they can still be relevant while proving that when it comes to popularity in the music business, image and youth trumps actual talent.

They hired a bunch of young, pretty kids to lip-synch to their new music. They called this new band The Poppy Fields. After The Poppy Fields' single 45 RPM became a hit, The Alarm revealed to the public that the entire song was actually written and performed by a washed-up middle-aged rock band.

In Vinyl, a baffling title, Johnny Jones (Phil Daniels) used to be a mini-legend as the headliner of his punk band Weapons of Happiness. After unceremoniously breaking up his band in the early 90s due to his gigantic ego, his aspirations for a solo career end up disastrously. Twenty years later, he lives in a trailer in Wales and gets high with cows.

When he attends the funeral of the vocalist of a once-rival band, he hooks up once again with his old band mates. They get drunk and decide to record a new song. In a shocking turn of events, the song doesn't sound half bad when they wake up the next morning.

Johnny is psyched that he can get his career back on track with this new song. However, there's one problem: No one wants to sign a band whose members are over thirty, let alone fifty. So Johnny decides to hire a bunch of kids, the loose-cannon street musician known as Drainpipe (Jamie Blackley) among them, in order to pretend the song was recorded by this hot new band of teenage punk rockers.

At first, his plan is to reveal that the young band was in fact a bunch of old geezers after the first single becomes a hit, but when the band blows up beyond his wildest dreams, coming out with the truth might be a lot harder than he previously thought.

The performances in Vinyl are mostly natural and heartfelt. The other members of Weapons of Happiness, who all have their distinct characteristics, especially charmed me. Phil Daniels carries the project with the efficient drive he injects into this middle-aged character who's stuck in perpetual arrested development.

The problems begin with the flat and entirely all-too-predictable screenplay. All of the act breaks can be seen coming from a mile away, especially a typical second act break twist that should have been entirely too obvious to the characters. Another twist about a possible familial connection between two main characters is not only too easy to guess, but stinks of unbelievable plot convenience.

The digital cinematography is too lifeless to work for a feature and the one song that was written for the film, the song that becomes a hit for the fake young band, is repeated ad nauseam. It's understandable that the filmmakers could only afford to pay for one song for the production, but cutting out a couple of its appearances might have eased the inevitable headache.

However, the amount of energy that director Sara Sugarman (Confession of a Teenage Drama Queen) pumps into the film is undeniable. It lacks a lot of the wit and sarcasm from what one might expect from a British comedy and it's far from a memorable rock satire like This is Spinal Tap, but it should prove to be an entertaining distraction for fans of the 80s punk scene.

The Blu-Ray:

Video:

As mentioned above, Vinyl's digital cinematography leaves a lot to be desired for a feature. The 1080p presentation is probably loyal to the source and presents a clean video transfer. There's nothing to complain about as far as the presentation goes but the film itself does not necessarily need to be viewed on a giant screen.

Audio:

The Blu-Ray for Vinyl comes with two audio options, both in DTS-HD. We get a 5.1 surround track as well as a 2.0 stereo one. Most of the dialogue and sound effects stick to the center channel and are mixed clearly. The many punk songs, as well as the endless repetitions of the hit new song by Weapons of Happiness, take over all of the rest of the channels every time they appear as they surround the room with dynamic force. The 2.0 track is also mixed well.

Extras:

Behind The Scenes: A five-minute EPK that uses more footage from the film itself than interviews from the cast and crew.

Music Video: Just in case you're not sick of the "hit" song, we get a video that mixes footage of the young fake band with a live performance from Weapons of Happiness.

We also get a Trailer and a Picture Gallery.

Final Thoughts:

Vinyl is based on a true story that could have resulted in a biting satire about the shallowness of the contemporary music industry. Instead, it turns into a run-of-the-mill comedy about a bunch of aging rockers. The bad writing is covered by an energetic execution; therefore it's definitely worth a rental.

Oktay Ege Kozak is a film critic and screenwriter based in Portland, Oregon. He also writes for The Playlist, The Oregon Herald, and Beyazperde.com