SLC
Punk!
(1999)
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 Hour and 37 Minutes
Reviewer: Erik
Grade: B"SLC Punk!" tells the stories of two Salt Lake City punk rockers -- Stevo and Heroin Bob -- and how they spend their days debating anarchy, doing drugs, throwing parties, going to parties and trying to destroy "the system."
A lot of this movie is quite directionless. Heroin Bob cuts his hand and goes to the doctor...weeks later. A lot goes into obtaining only the strongest of the beers for a party. A friend of theirs accidentally does too much acid and mistakes his mom for a bull-demon. The guys steal a car and watch as it refuses to sink into Salt Lake.
Chaos follows throughout. A punk gig ends in violence. Rednecks invade a punk party. Nazi punks get their rear ends handed to them.
It's hard to sort through all the chaos, but at the center of the story is Stevo and whether or not he's going to make something of his life. His mom and dad want him to attend Harvard Law School. He's happy with the four years of college he got through, although he's not really sure if he went to "get a 4.0 in damage." The "most hardcore guy in the scene" decides to better his life with college and it gets Stevo thinking. And one day, he sees an old friend and it scares him.
I've always known Matthew Lillard as the annoying killer in "Scream." But here, he finds the right notes, and it's a commendable performance.
There is an inspired lunacy to this movie that's hard to overlook. Stevo explains why the rednecks have invaded his party in slide-show fashion, including little arrows pointing to each clique member, and not without explanations ("...The heavy metal guys beat up the new-wavers, and the new-wavers beat up nobody... They're the new hippies."). There's a lot of loud music, a lot of unnecessary cursing and a lot of people getting hit and throwing things. At times, even *I* wanted to duck for fear of getting hit by something.
"SLC Punk!" gets bonus points (in my book, anyway) for having Stevo narrate in such a way that he often addresses the camera directly instead of just speaking as scene after scene leaves the screen. It's like he's really letting us into his world. There are also some neat camera tricks, a bit of slo-mo and a lot of freeze-frame shots.
The movie is not without its flaws, though. Even for a punk movie, it sometimes veers way out of control (i.e. some of the "tripping" scenes, the scene where Sean goes after his mom).
Some scenes are unnecessary (the scene where Heroin Bob goes to visit his dad).
Still, though, the movie has a good dose of laughs. And it's not your typical by-the-numbers movie-making. There are a good deal of chances taken, and most of them pay off. The ending is quite realistic, in that it shows how punks CAN grow up without selling out.
Recommended.