THAT DARN PUNK
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 2001 filmcritic.com
filmcritic.com
This unapologetic indie certainly feels like a festival-circuit entry. Alas, no -- Kung Fu Films has poured its $21,000 into That Darn Punk with intent to make a profit. Hence, it's straight to video and a big soundtrack release.
Foolish? Hardly. According to the press notes, soundtrack preorders have covered the cost of production fourfold. Now that's a business plan!
It's no surprise the soundtrack is inspiring some enthusiasm. Scored by The Ataris, Nerf Herder, Rancid, AFI, No Motiv, Lagwagon, The Vandals, and a half-dozen other punkish outfits, That Darn Punk is indeed an ode to, well, punk. And its star, Joe Escalante, just so happens to be the bassist for The Vandals.
So what's it all about? Oh, the plot. Yeah. Well, Escalante plays a punk rocker in a Vandals-like band called The Big Tippers, and after an ill-advised near-fling with a music video moll, his girlfriend kicks him out in nothing but his boxers, he is abducted and taken to the desert, and a series of wacky hijinks involving murder, drugs, and aliens occurs -- all so unlikely that you'll be drawing comparisons to Ed Wood flicks.
It's not a bad comparison to make. That Darn Punk is goofy fun with basement-level production values a la Repo Man. Is it a witty ride through existentialism? No. Is it something you might want to put on at a party if for no other reason than to hear the kickin' soundtrack and hope that your drunken guests will get a laugh out of the video?
Ah, perfect.
RATING: **1/2
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Jeff Richardson Producer: Jeff Richardson, Joe Escalante Writer: Jeff Richardson, Robert Stinson Starring: Joe Escalante, Katalina, Mia Crowe, Kandis Scalise, Lisa Hannan, Zander Schluss, Warren Fitzgerald
http://www.thatdarnpunk.com/
--- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=filmcriticcom&path=subst/video/sellers/amazon-top-100-dvd.html Movie Fiends: Check out Amazon.com's Top 100 Hot DVDs!
Visit filmcritic.com on the Web at http://www.filmcritic.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews