The cultural phenomenon of Punk Rock is uprooted in a cynical quasi-documentary celebrating the self-destructive anarchy of the movement while at the same time exposing the cold, calculated design behind it. True to its subject, the film itself is a crude but often creatively packaged hodge-podge of home movies, archival news footage, and other, aborted film projects, charting the rise and fall of the Sex Pistols and their elusive manager/Svengali Malcolm McLaren, who effectively hoodwinked press and public alike with his publicity schemes and media manipulations, exhibiting enough brazen showmanship to make even P.T. Barnum blush. Regardless of its commercial agenda (which McLaren takes special delight in unmasking) the Punk movement successfully steered rock music away from the apathetic trends of the mid '70s and restored to it some of the raw, rebellious power chords of its youth. Included in the film are performances of several seminal Punk classics: Anarchy in the UK; God Save the Queen; Pretty Vacant, etc.
Review of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
