Private Parts

Given US 'shock jock' Howard Stern's most conspicuous qualities - the ultra-nerdy appearance, the unrepentant egotism, the arrested adolescent obsession with breast and penis size - you'd be forgiven for expecting this loose adaptation of his best-selling 'autobiography' to be embarrassing and annoying in equal measure. Nor do the opening scenes bode well. But once the film flashes back to trawl through his life and career - from staging salacious puppet shows for OAPs as a kid, through the endless battles with station bosses angered by his determination to say and do whatever he wants on-air, to his final vindication, in 1985, as America's top radio personality - it's hard to resist his rude, gleeful determination to rid himself of the taboos, predictability and tedium of conventional radio. Though Betty Thomas's movie tones down some of Stern's more troubling takes on sensitive issues and plays up his enduring relationship with his astonishingly supportive wife (McCormack), it still has more than enough outrageous moments to sustain hilarity until the end credits. No one could seriously take Stern for a people's hero - he's too crass, conceited and self-serving - but here at least, as a non-PC mirth-monger, he has what it takes, no shit.