Wasted youth

>> SLC Punk! rebels against rebellion

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

True, I never battled rednecks with baseball bats and I never bought beer in Wyoming. I'm from Beaconsfield, not Salt Lake City, Utah. But the mid-'80s punk rock wasteland of SLC Punk!, that stretch between the Sex Pistols' media blitz and Green Day's entropic mersh pit, is a familiar one.

It's not so much the scientific breakdown of the subcultural fauna of the day, as accurate as filmmaker James Merendino's characterizations may be. And it's not the frustration of being young, bored, broke and trapped in a pristine promised land peopled by palookas who, for the most part, just don't get it.

It's the creeping realization that mohawks and malt liquor marathons are no less full of shit than minivans and tractor mowers.

Oddly, the shoddy production values of this film work in its favour, the same way Black Flag sounds best on scratchy vinyl. And the beer-fuelled pseudo-anarchist rants of narrator Stevo (Matthew Lillard of Scream and Senseless) are so stilted, so much naïve teen angst, that they could only come off as somehow authentic.

The hardcore hijinx of Stevo, his pal Heroin Bob and their crew of goofy misfits are a cornucopia of cheap laffs. Stuff gets broken, fights break out, idiots contradict themselves, cops chase punks, punks beat up on Nazis, mods sell pills, rednecks run rampant and repressed Mormons shake their heads and look confused. Wasn't teenland fun, back when it sucked?

The funniest--and most touching--moments in SLC Punk!, however, are the episodes of high-speed verbal fencing between Stevo and his dad, a philandering failed hippie/successful businessman (played by the underrated Christopher McDonald, who slayed me with his turn in Happy Gilmore). There's genuine affection underlying the vicious little jabs and stabs they exchange, paving the way for Stevo's inexorable surrender to adulthood.

I snickered at Stevo's dad when, early in the film, he grabs his son's sleeve and says, "I didn't sell out, son. I bought in. Just remember that." What a sad, desperate little flake, I thought. When Stevo finally shaves off his blue hair and packs up for law school, I was still laughing--only without the self-satisfaction.

SLC Punk! opens Friday, May 14 at the Cinéma du Parc. See repertory listings for showtimes