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SLC Punk Reviews
Despite its painfully pat finale, the film does strike a bittersweet chord in anyone still clinging to the part of themselves that once dressed funny and scoffed at the idea of ever fitting in.
...James Merendino’s SLC Punk! strikes a brighter chord than the immortal Sid and Nancy, and although fresh and endearing are hardly words you associate with punk, the film doesn’t feel like a cop-out until the very end.
We don't really need some young punk to tell us that anarchy is an untenable idea, but watching him live it is an invigorating experience.
It's handsome filmmaking that doesn't surface until the final 25 minutes during which Stevo and company's sense of marginalization achieves the palpable, emotional import that's more expressive than anything its characters' have to b**** about.
...the ironic lameness of an “anarchistic” philosophy being articulated by rich-kid brat bound for law school, so “SLC Punk” itself doesn’t quite grasp how its slick, flashy package undermines any actual punk cred.
...freezes interrupt the action to permit [Stevo] to comment on it by directly addressing the camera—part of a hearty style of self-referential filmmaking that only adds to the persuasiveness of Lillard's stunning performance.
For punkology students only.
Merendino tells his story wildly a la "Trainspotting" - with sudden flashbacks and, in one case, a kind of hilarious mini-essay on fighting as the preferred punk pastime. It is by turns very funny, unsettlingly violent, touching and, ultimately, very sad.
The result is a bit scattershot, but amusing and touching nonetheless.
[Salt Lake City]...is where writer-director James Merendino, a man with an eye for the ludicrous, has set his surprisingly genial and affecting comedy about the trials and tribulations of teenage rebellion during the Reagan of '80s.
For a stereotypical portrait of angst and aggression, there's certain poseur charm to "SLC Punk." And refreshingly, coffee bars and bad poetry are nowhere to be found.
Like his characters, Merendino is excessively sold on the hipness of his enterprise. But the content of his film is never as potent as its trappings might lead you to believe.
Merendino can't quite harness his passion for rebellion into a package of consistent interest.
"SLC Punk!" is all about the fuss and bother of alienated youth. It has a moment of tragedy that is affecting, but it strangely winds up as a noisy trip to that big nowhere of normalcy, hardly the place where punks really want to reside.
Rambling, episodic and evidently somewhat autobiographical, writer/director James Merendino's film has plenty of raw energy going for it. But SLC Punk also displays a kind of earnest nostalgia that's at odds with the angry-young-man posturing.
Typically, movies about misguided punks are so scabrous and their characters so repellent that it's hard to look at them as anything but freak shows. But Stevo and Bob are appealingly puppyish underneath all that bravura.
Spiked hair, mid-80's punk music, mosh pits, bad drugs and baseball-bat beatings give SLC Punk its visceral energy. But viewers also will discover surprising insight and even a tiny bit of warm sentiment.
The episodic plot resembles the musical movement it depicts in its homemade earnestness and ragged, jagged feel. Some sequences, however...just don't work and almost stop the film cold.
How much you will like it will depend on how much of the manic Matthew Lillard you can stand, as SLC Punk! is basically all Lillard, all the time.
Written and directed by James Merendino, SLC Punk! is ultimately a wiser and truer film than its crass and cartoony beginnings would have us believe...