SLC Punk! . Memphis Flyer . 06-07-99

SLC Punk!

DIRECTED BY: James Merendino

REVIEWED: 06-07-99

If the words Salt Lake City and punk seem mismatched, you have already gotten the point of budding filmmaker James Merendino's comic picaresque of flaming youth rebelling against the constrictive mores of the Mormon capital. Stevo (Matthew Lillard) and sidekick Heroin Bob (Michael Goorjian), with their blue hair, mohawks, and freaky duds, have a lot to flame about; SLC Punk! is set in the mid-1980s, with rife Reaganism exacerbating the already-unyielding conformity of their monolithic community. As rebels, Stevo and Bob leave much to be desired, in spite of Stevo's claim that he wants "to bring down the system." The two spend most of their time hanging out in the city's small oases of punkdom, going to parties, and engaging in vicious gang-style battles with rednecks. Merendino makes transparent efforts to link the film's random vignettes into some vague statement about individual liberty and creative expression, but this aspiration is undone by the headbanging shallowness of his anti-heroes. Despite hating rednecks because they "are America incarnate," Stevo and Bob have crawled from beneath another side of the same rock. The film's only real integrity comes in Stevo's rancidly colorful voiceover narrative; it's nonstop, rapid fire, and funny, part would-be tough guy, part psychedelic Tom Sawyer.

--Hadley Hury

Full Length Reviews
SLC Punk!

Capsule Reviews
SLC Punk!

Film Vault Suggested Links
Varsity Blues
Last Night
God Said, "Ha!"

Rate this Film
If you don't want to vote on a film yet, and would like to know how others voted, leave the rating selection as "Vote Here" and then click the Cast Vote button.