OK first the disclaimer:

Punk rock died the day it was blessed with its moniker, I think somewhere around 1979/1980. I think part of the reason it died was because everyone was trying to strictly define what Punk meant, kinda defeating the purpose. The idea of anyone claiming to be "punk" now or at any point during the 90s or even the 80s is patently ridiculous. It's death, however, did serve to allow many people in different places to cadge together their own ideas about what "punk" was and reshape their own local counter-culture scene into something somewhat resembling that. Let's face it, the entire idea behind Anarchy is that of Iconoclasm; the destruction of images and false constructs, for example pop culture trends such as PUNK.

End disclaimer.

I came in as part of the punk revival (2nd wave) in the mid-80s, growing up in a mid-sized Midwestern city. The punk scene was very alive there and I immediately identified with it, but stuck with the non-conformist nature of it rather than filing off into a splinter group and wearing a uniform. This movie recalled a lot of my own experiences, ideas and feelings from that time. Uncomfortably so. Of course there was a lot of BS too, but the BS was part and parcel of the scene since everyone was co-opting "punk" into their own little social circles.

I didn't learn anything from this movie, which to my mind illustrates its accuracy as a decent, digestible snapshot of what was going on within that world where each of us knew a Heroin Bob, a crazy Belgian Mark, an intense nerdy Mike who just might go off the deep end and start a fight with the cops, a slutty Sandie, and armchair philosophers galore. And of course drugs, booze, filth and bad music.

A previous reviewer scolded this film for not following the "true punk" philosophy and went on to talk about how the Midwest "doesn't have a punk scene." Wrong. Buddy, reading books or watching videos about the history of that movement won't tell you anything. It was not deep, profound, or incredibly thoughtful. Don't read too much into it.

On initially watching this movie I wanted to give it a higher rating, because all in all it was fast-paced and entertaining. The dialog was good enough and there was plenty of humor and action. One stylistic criticism is that Stevo's voice-over was poorly utilized. In movies where the method works, such as Fight Club and A Clockwork Orange, the voice-over was used moderately so as to represent the narrator's perspective through comments where it would otherwise be unclear rather than summarize things that could have been shown instead of told or were already happening on screen. Overall, it seemed to be a low-budget attempt to emulate Trainspotting's style.

On further reflection, however, it's clear that this movie is geared towards 90's hipsters who don't know anything about punk rock and only recognize it for its fashionistas and punk bands that were slow and poppy enough to make it to the mainstream. Disappointingly, there seemed to be more classical music in its soundtrack than genuine 80's hardcore songs. Despite Stevo's railings against 'posers,' he and his friends seemed to be trying too hard with their image to take any of his 'anarchist' rhetoric seriously. Nor is anarchism even close to being the only ideology which identifies with punk. Contrary to this movie's attempt to portray punks as being to the 80's what hippies were to the 60's, the genre is far too diverse and divergent to make the point stick. Along with druggies there were straight edgers, along with anarchists there were fascists, and along with all of them there were people who just didn't care one way or the other. SLC Punk attempted to use broad generalizations to display a small subsection within punk rock as being wholly representative for its target audience of outsiders. Within 80's hardcore, a shaved head, plain tee, and boots were far more common than a blue mohawk with tight leather pants.

SLC Punk never truly felt as though it was about the music or even the broader social scene so much as it was about a specific character, his specific problems, and his specific viewpoint.

The amorphous plot had been satisfactory until its ending, which had conclusions which were too black-and-white and didn't translate smoothly enough from the protagonist to his broader social situation. This could have been forgiven however, if not for the display of some of the most horrible and clichéd acting I've seen within memory from the two kids playing the flashback versions of Stevo and Bob. The amateurishness and total lack of quality in this scene speaks for itself.

I would only recommend this movie to someone with nothing else to do and who can take its portrayal of punk with more than a grain of salt.