Pssst, want to check out SLC Punk! in our new look?
Information
- Year
- 1998
- Runtime
- 97 min.
- Director
- James Merendino
- Genres
- Drama, Comedy, Music
- Rating *
- 7.5
- Votes *
- 21,575
- Checks
- 2,726
- Favs
- 297
- Dislikes
- 26
- Favs/checks
- 10.9% (1:9)
- Favs/dislikes
- 11:1
Top comments
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Siskoid
I think calling out SLC Punk for being an American version of Trainspotting is probably right, even if a character called Heroin Bob is dead against taking drugs. There's the same anarchic spirit, the same kind of soundtrack (except I don't like it), the same kind of narration, and plenty of drug-fuelled POVs. It's no Trainspotting, but it does feel personal to writer-director James Merendino seeing as he's a Salt Lake City native himself, and presents its punk scene under fire with some love. It's punk under American puritanical conditions, punk rebelling against itself as it tries to get out from under the shadow of OG Brit punk. The story keeps bouncing around as Matthew Lillard (who should have had a very different career based on this - he carries the film) tells anecdotes that send us careening into flashbacks willy-nilly. It's an anarchic structure that is probably meant to evoke "punk", even if the thesis of the film is that the punk ethos isn't viable and like other youth movements, is something you necessarily outgrow. Lillard's Stevo is thus living through the death of punk, not as a movement (others may take up the baton), but in his own group. It's the death of youthful idealism, ironically dressed up as fatalism. It's kind of depressing, actually. 2 months 1 week ago -
