SLC Punk! movie review & film summary (1999)

Stevo (Matthew Lillard) narrates the film, which is a nostalgic tour of his world, done in much the same tone as Ray Liotta's voice-overs in Scorsese's "GoodFellas'' (1990). He explains, he theorizes, he addresses the camera directly, he identifies the various characters and cliques. His approach is anthropological. The Stevo character simultaneously stands inside and outside his world; he keeps an ironic angle on his rebellion, but can't see himself living the life of his father, a former "activist,'' who now explains, "I didn't sell out. I bought in.'' Stevo is stuck in a limbo of parties, music, hanging out, long discussions, recreational mind-altering and uncertainty. His dad wants him to go to Harvard. ("If you want to rebel there, you can do it.'') Stevo wants to go to the University of Utah, "and get a 4.0 in Damage.'' He stays in Salt Lake City, and there's a flashback to explain how he got to his current punk state: We see a young Stevo in the basement, playing with Dungeons & Dragons figures, and the future Heroin Bob comes in with a tape, tells him D&D is worthless, says "listen to this,'' and leads him out of dweebdom.

Stevo's college career passes in the movie's fractured memory style, and Bob's girlfriend Trish (Annabeth Gish) introduces him to Brandy (Summer Phoenix), who asks him, "Wouldn't it be more rebellious if you didn't spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes?'' There also are details about Stevo's home life (his parents have divorced, his dad having traded in the old wife on a new Porsche), and about the improvisational style of days spent seeing what turns up next.

The film could have taken a lot of cheap shots at the Mormon culture of Salt Lake City, but most of its local details are more in the way of reporting than of satire. Stevo laments, for example, the problems involved in such a basic act as buying a six-pack of beer, in a state where only low-alcohol 3.2 beer is sold, and the clerks in the state-owned liquor stores are all cops who phone in tips if you even look like you're thinking of doing anything illegal. There is also a debate with customers in a convenience store about the "curse on the land'' and the imminent arrival of Satan. Here we witness something I have long suspected, that the exaggerated fascination with Satan in some religious quarters is the flip side of the heavy metal/goth/satanic thing. Whether you worship Satan or oppose him, he stars in your fantasies.

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