johnstonjames calling this film a 'mockumentary' or fictional is an inaccurate description. sure Malcolm McLaren might be a first class(definitely first class though)A-hole, but much of what takes place here really did happen to the 'Pistols' during their exploits. also anyone lashing out at this film entirely misses the point. it's not a film applauding Malcolm McLaren, hardly, it's a very detached and humorous film art concocted by the clever and talented Julien Temple. anyone mindlessly trashing a Julien Temple film without taking into account the director's skill and reputation is being a little child-like. Julien Temple is a great film maker who shouldn't be so easily dismissed by a few jabbing remarks.don't be so naive. this isn't McLaren's film, it's Julien Temple's. anyone who thinks this is a film by McLaren has their information all wrong.if you are a real 'Sex Pistol' fan, how can you so easily dismiss the great music number with Sid Vicious singing his cover of "My Way"? didn't you know that Julien Temple directed that for this particular film? that music cover is an important footnote in the 'Pistols' history. how can you say you love the band or Sid and then just dismiss that like it was nothing.their are many great and hilarious moments in this film (most of them real) that are due to the skill of Julien Temple as a film maker. the scene where Sid "El KaBongs" a redneck with his guitar is a hilarious example of how the boundaries of real life and cartoon violence can become blurred. there are many other great music numbers and animation in this film, plus interesting little anecdotes like the story of Johnny being attacked by thugs.anyone telling you not to watch this and that it's not a great piece of 'Sex Pistol' history, has probably become disturbingly involved in the dispute between Lydon and McLaren on a personal level. to become involved with celebrities on that level is, well, MORONIC. you don't know them personally, even though it can feel like it. people should remain detached when enjoying celebrity culture. too much personal involvement makes you miss the message of things. like the fact that this is a Julien Temple film and not an endorsement of Malcolm McLaren.

tonygillan To this day, Malcolm McLaren is telling anyone daft enough to believe him that the Sex Pistols were his idea and that the band members were his puppets to be used to make him money. There is a good reason for him doing this, namely that he is a liar.Here are some real facts.* McLaren was actually approached by the band to be manager, not the other way round.* The Pistols were a proper, organic band and not created by McLaren or anyone else. Jones and Cook were childhood friends. Rotten and Vicious went back a long way too. This is something that has led to unfair criticism of the Pistols down the years as they have been likened to manufactured boy bands.* The band and no one else wrote the songs, recorded them, played live, created the publicity and gave the interviews.* McLaren did not instigate the Bill Grundy incident. The Pistols only appeared on the programme because Queen had pulled out. According to the band, McLaren was cowering in the back in case arrests were about to be made.* Johnny Rotten walked out of the band. He was not sacked.* Far from outwitting the Sex Pistols, John Lydon (Rotten) actually successfully sued him in the 1980s for control and a considerable sum of money. Some of the evidence used by Lydon's lawyers was from McLaren's boasting in 'The Great Rock & Roll Swindle'. This would suggest that McLaren is none too bright despite his affectations.* The sackings and subsequent pay offs from A & M and EMI were, again, not engineered, it was merely the way things panned out.* McLaren boasts about the money he made from the band. If he had been competent, he could have made a great deal more. It seems he coudn't even organise gigs properly.* McLaren's claim at the start of the film that he invented punk rock can be disproved in about ten seconds. The Pistols were not the first punk band, merely the most high profile.This is a terrible film. The only parts worth watching are the genuine footage of the band, later put to much better use in 'The Filth And The Fury'.

margus-kiis I know that there are McLaren's side and Lydon's side and they hate each other. And Lydonists also hate this movie. For me they are both nasty and egocentric guys with their bad and good ideas. Whatever. I don't care about the ideology of the movie. But the movie is surprisingly good and interesting. I have seen several rock films and this is one of bests. Documentary, fiction, feature parts and animations are cut together in very entertaining way and I don't see any problem in directing and acting. Surprisingly professional movie. And maybe without "Swindle..." we wouldn't have so much footages of Sex Pistols and the whole 70's punk scene.

matlock-6 Not only is The Great Rock N Roll Swindle thoroughly inaccurate, but when it comes down to it, not much about it is interesting or even entertaining. Malcolm McLaren apparently squandered the majority of the Sex Pistols earnings on this waste of film, which makes it that much more obnoxious. The intention, from the beginning, was to create a monument to the "genius" of McLaren, who to this day takes full credit for creating punk music, creating the Sex Pistols, and at times even writing all the songs. Viewers follow McLaren to various settings, where he tells his story to his sidekick, a female dwarf, and simply takes credit for one thing after another. One particularly irritating scene has McLaren in an abandoned airplane hangar, waiting for a plane, being hounded by reporters and giving them their "big story". The most entertaining elements of the film are the animated short pieces, however, even these reek of McLaren's overbearing self-importance.Even as a farce, this film doesn't work. Little about it is entertaining, except for Steve Jones, who is surprisingly decent as a pseudo-detective type person. 20 years later, Julien Temple, who wrote and directed this film, also directed the Sex Pistols documentary "The Filth and the Fury". While that movie is much better and more interesting than "Swindle", it still is full of Temple's "artistic flourishes" that just don't work, like interviewing band members in shadow, as if they are some kind of crime witness trying to hide their identity. An interesting bit of trivia: Film critic Roger Ebert was one of the original scriptwriters for the movie "Who Killed Bambi?", which eventually became "Swindle".