Review ‘Pistol’: Sex Pistols Miniseries Explores Punk Rock Pioneers

Punk was a marketing gimmick. It wasn’t about revolution or subversion; it was about mockery and fashion and making a buck. It was a put-on. It was a pose. As personified by the Sex Pistols, punk rock took off in a clothing shop.

Danny Boyle astutely observes all this in directing the richly imagined and thoughtful new six-part FX and Hulu miniseries Pistol (created and written by Craig Pearce), which bitingly recalls the noisome band’s steep rise and fiery crash. The Pistols were assembled as surely as the Monkees were and for the same reason — to fill a marketing niche. As played with fey elasticity by the wonderful Thomas Brodie-Sangster (he’ll always be the Love, Actually kid to me, but this performance is mighty fine), posh boy Malcolm McLaren puts together the Sex Pistols in the avant-garde store he runs with Vivienne Westwood in London’s groovy but rich Chelsea neighborhood. McLaren asks Westwood (Talulah Riley) what she is making her shredded, ugly, sexy/angry pieces for. “To expose hypocrisy and provoke revolution!” she declares. “What, with sticky black plastic and squeezy bottles?” McLaren answers.

About the Author

Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

Punk was a marketing gimmick. It wasn’t about revolution or subversion; it was about mockery and fashion and making a buck. It was a put-on. It was a pose. As personified by the Sex Pistols, punk rock took off in a clothing shop.

Danny Boyle astutely observes all this in directing the richly imagined and thoughtful new six-part FX and Hulu miniseries Pistol (created and written by Craig Pearce), which bitingly recalls the noisome band’s steep rise and fiery crash. The Pistols were assembled as surely as the Monkees were and for the same reason — to fill a marketing niche. As played with fey elasticity by the wonderful Thomas Brodie-Sangster (he’ll always be the Love, Actually kid to me, but this performance is mighty fine), posh boy Malcolm McLaren puts together the Sex Pistols in the avant-garde store he runs with Vivienne Westwood in London’s groovy but rich Chelsea neighborhood. McLaren asks Westwood (Talulah Riley) what she is making her shredded, ugly, sexy/angry pieces for. “To expose hypocrisy and provoke revolution!” she declares. “What, with sticky black plastic and squeezy bottles?” McLaren answers.