YMMV / The Boat That Rocked

• Awesome Music: Most of the soundtrack could qualify for this. Plus a particularly awesome use of the already awesome Dambusters March.
• Designated Hero: Carl is portrayed as a sweet, naive Nice Guy to root for, despite trying to set up what was basically a rape early in the film.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The film performed quite well at the French box office, pretty much on par with Love Actually, and consistently enjoys very positive audience ratings there.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • With the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, the scene where he talks with Carl about these being 'the best times of your life' is pretty Tearjerking, along with the climax with the Count refusing to leave the ship and leading the crew to believe he perished.
  • In the DVD commentary, Richard Curtis says Hoffman told him he saw the Count as someone whose gregarious exterior hid a dark and depressive inner-self. Remind you of anyone?
• Hollywood Homely: Young Carl starts off as a shy public schoolboy virgin who says the closest he's come to a snog is being licked by a horse, but he looks like a male model. To be fair he did go to an all-boy's school.
• Moral Event Horizon: Dormandy's already a Strawman Political, but there's trying to shut down a pirate radio station and then there's refusing to send out rescue ships when the boat starts sinking, on the basis that he can't possibly justify the expense. Even Twatt looks perturbed by that.
• One-Scene Wonder: Emma Thompson as Carl's mom (whose shagability virtually everyone comments on).
• Retroactive Recognition: Gemma Arterton appears early on as one of Dave's groupies.
• Signature Line:
  • For some people, Quentin's Stiff Upper Lip Oh, Crap! moment when he and Carl are caught in a flooding corridor.
  Quentin: Ah. We would appear to be in entirely the wrong place at entirely the wrong time.
  • Minister Dormandy's Establishing Character Moment line is pretty frequently quoted by many fans.
  Dormandy: You see, that's the whole point of being the government. If you don't like something, you simply make up a new law that makes it illegal.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Simon tearfully singing "Stay With Me Baby" after being left by Elenore the day after they married whilst Harold looks on (also in tears).
  • At the end, the engine explodes, leaving a hole in the boat and making it sink. As everyone tries to escape, they explain what's happening over the radio calmly and play "A Whiter Shade of Pale", and all the records stored are swept away by the water rushing in. What makes it doubly worse is that the people listening to the radio station at the time know what's going on, and they can't do anything to help it. (Until later, of course.)
  • "But I don't understand."
  • As mentioned in Harsher in Hindsight
  The Count: You know, a few months ago, I made a terrible mistake. I realized something, and instead of crushing the thought the moment it came I... I let it hang on, and now I know it to be true. And I'm afraid it's stuck in my head forever. These are the best days of our lives. It's a terrible thing to know, but I know it.

• The Woobie:
  • Angus, who thinks no one really likes him, who can't swim, and who tells terrible jokes... but because of it is oddly adorable. Aptly enough, he's also Murray from Flight of the Conchords.
  • Simon who has a lovely wedding only to discover the morning after that it was all just so his new wife could be on the boat with another DJ.
  • Twatt, who not only has to live with that name but gets treated quite badly by Dormandy. At the end of the day he's only doing his job. Although he loses some of our sympathy near the end when he tells the fisherman to "Shut the FUCK! UP!"

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