Comfortable and Furious

HARD CORE LOGO

hardcorelogo1

We’re all punk rockers here at Ruthless.  Cale has a four foot high Mohawk that he maintains with airplane glue. I’m auditioning to replace Jello for a Dead Kennedys reunion tour. Keith  is treasurer of the Blink-182 fan club. Our PR credentials are impeccable.

Because it’s about punk, I want to like Hard Core Logo. I think some of it’s positive reviews come from people who feel similarly, but at the end of the day, this one is just ok. It’s not without it’s good points. It captures many aspects of the punk scene from sell outs like Billy to the sophomoric use of slogans as political discourse–make guns
illegal! Actually, the film is Canadian, so that probably wasn’t meant as a
joke.  Maybe it’s also a statement about refusal to compromise being self-defeating.  The film is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatically effective and in a nutshell, sometimes pretty good.

The problem is that I like movies to be good all the way through. Too many of the jokes in this one fall flat, like the Spinal Tap allusions. Too much of the drama doesn’t work. For example, Billy and Joe conspire to shed the other two members of the band with no apparent reason for doing so. The band’s performances could have made or broken this film but, typically, they did neither. They are only so-so. Still, the Hard Core Logo is worth seeing if you are interested in the subject matter. The triple entendre at the end is enough to ensure that.


Special Ruthless Ratings

  • Film Overall: 4
  • Direction: 5
  • Acting: 6
  • DVD Goodies: 0
  • Rewatchability: 4
  • Number of times I paused the movie to do
    something else: 3
  • Number of times they put Nomeansno in this movie,
    which is supposed to be about Canadian Punk: 0!
  • Number of beers it would take to completely enjoy
    this film: 5
  • Does Whiskey Count as Beer: Yes

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