SLC PUNK! (Sony Pictures Classics) Starring: Matthew Lillard, Michael Goorjian, Annabeth Gish, Jennifer Lien, Til Schweiger. Screenplay: James Merendino. Producers: Sam Maydew and Peter Ward. Director: James Merendino. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, drug use, violence) Running Time: 97 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
James Merendino's SLC PUNK! has something deep and insightful to say about the nature of youthful rebellion. Sort of. Maybe. I think. It's sort of hard to tell through all the bombast of Merendino's hyperactive period piece, which tries to be a sort of nostalgic BREAKFAST CLUB for the Dead Kennedys set but misses the point entirely. It's one thing to make a film about teens grousing over the sell-outs of adulthood and the trials of coping with societal expectations, and target it at the teens themselves; it's quite another to make such a film and target it at those who've already been through that melodramatic wringer. The simple enjoyment that might have come from the time and the tunes instead turns into a 90 minute wait for the characters to get a clue.
Our tour guide through SLC PUNK! is Stevo (Matthew Lillard), who -- along with his best friend Heroin Bob (Michael Goorjian) -- is one of the few true punks in the capital of conservative Utah during the conservative Reagan era circa 1985. The tour consists largely of an anthropological dig through Stevo and Bob's twisted clique, which includes an independently wealthy and extremely paranoid drug dealer (Til Schweiger), the lads' respective ladyfriends (Jennifer Lien and Annabeth Gish), and an acid casualty (Devon Sawa). Along the way we learn about the various sub-categories of Salt Lake City youth, the influence of Stevo's 60s radical-turned-yuppie father (Christopher McDonald), and where to go for real beer when you need it.
Like many an independent comedy, SLC PUNK! has enough frantic energy to guarantee at least a few belly laughs -- notably during Stevo's spin through a party describing the various sub-plots in action, and a scene showing our protagonists as pre-punk, "Dungeons and Dragons"-obsessed middle-schoolers. Also like many an independent comedy, it often has nothing _but_ frantic energy. For every decent gag or clever insight, you can count on at least two or three self-indulgent uses of direct address to the camera in which Stevo rails about religious oppression or the plague of poseurs (i.e., those who son the garb without walking the walk). Scenes which I'm assuming should come off as either amusing or wise-beyond-his-years instead come off as merely damp; if spittle were diamonds, Matthew Lillard's performance would surely be a piece of comic jewelry fit for a princess. Once again, a film-maker's attempt to connect with the audience through narration becomes a lazy failure.
SLC PUNK! tries to score its major profundity points when Stevo is hit by the bombshell that rebellious youth are just conformists of a different kind. Well, you can file that one under "d" for "duh;" Stevo's revelation is one with which any audience member over the age of 25 will already be quite familiar. It's that kind of pseudo-wisdom that makes SLC PUNK! far more tiresome than a film built around devotion to the Ramones should have been. When tragedy strikes one of the film's significant characters late in the film, and Merendino tries to play it as a genuine tragedy, you realize he hasn't remotely earned an emotional response. SLC PUNK! blasts through its set pieces with little film-making prowess, then expects to tie it all together by having Stevo blubber away at misspent youth. Poseurs, indeed.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 bunk rockers: 4.
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