SLC Punk

SLC Punk

In the early 1980’s Stevo and Heroin Bob are the only two dedicated punks in conversative Salt Lake City.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 3-APR-2007
Media Type: DVD

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars THE BEST MOVIE I EVER SAW IN HIGH SCHOOL!
This is the best movie I ever saw in High School. 80′ punk was something I never saw but after hanging out with emo kids in 00′, my freshman year, was something I adored. Emo kids loved this movie for something I couldn’t reach but I loved this movie for what it was, a glorified coming of age tale of adolecence that couldn’t be touched without a ten-foot pole. I partied like there wasn’t a tomorrow nor a dirrerence of being one after which, but this movie served a greater meaning in my adulthood, mistake the future as the present and forsake the present as something of the past.

3 Stars Fun, but really conservative in punk drag…
“SLC Punk” is a shallow good time disguised as a sociological study. While seeming to laude the tenets of both anarchy and punk rock, the film is profoundly conservative and insulting once you dig a little deeper beneath the surface. Lillard is great, even during the obnoxious “speaking-directly-to-the-camera” portions, but what stands out is an underlying contempt for both punk specifically, and rebellion generally. “I didn’t sell out, I bought in.” That perhaps best sums up the sensibility behind “SLC Punk.” Turn off your brain and it’s all cool — otherwise, you will want to hunt down and kill James Merendino.

4 Stars Poignant and Full of Contradictions
SLC Punk is about a couple of punk/anarchists stuck in the middle of conservative, Mormon-dominated Salt Lake City. This is a pretty good film, as long as one bears in mind that the kids in it represent more of a “lifestyle anarchism” than a political philosophy, and as Stevo (the main character and narrator) self-consciously admits at several points, their actions and attitudes often stand as a flagrant contradiction of the punk ethos they espouse. While the movie does not accurately portray the “authentic” punk or anarchist philosophy, it does accurately and poignantly portray a widespread, popular bastardization of it, so it still creates relevant social commentary. As a coming-of-age story, it is poignant and affecting, particularly as tragedy descends upon Heroin Bob, ironically named for his aversion to needles and drugs.

Throughout the movie is an undercurrent of dissonance between an anti-oppression philosophy and the characters’ aimless,testosterone-fueled adventures. While Stevo and his friends rail against “fascism,” they glorify violence and act in ways that perpetuate the “macho” dominant culture. Fights are a way of life, and in one scene, Stevo (who claims earlier that “nobody owns anybody”) catches the woman he likes with someone else and proceeds to beat the daylights out of the rival, who he accuses of “invading his territory.” A less obvious irony is Stevo’s…well…patriotism! He goes to great lengths to extol the superiority of America’s punk scene, in one instance harassing a singer from the UK who’s been roughed up by Stevo and other patriotic punks.

An excellent soundtrack adds another layer to the realism of the film.

3 Stars descent movie
This movie is ok, not gonna win any awards. There is a lot of talk about punk posers in this movie. This is not about real punk rock. Which is fitting, because it’s about posers. It’s entertaining nonetheless.

5 Stars Much more than I expected.
This movie is proof that you should never judge an item by its appearance. When I first saw the cover of this DVD, I groaned, thinking it would be clich