This Core Has Gotten Soft!

American Hardcore
(2006)

Growing up in the smallest of Midwestern small towns in the late eighties and nineties (the leanest of lean years for punk rock) we didn't have any kind of "scene" to speak of, so a person dissatisfied with the offerings of MTV and radio had to actively seek out music that was outside of the mainstream. In middle school, I was already into Devo and the Ramones and got turned on to the Misfits by a like minded friend. Soon, I was full-fledged punker in a world where punkers were few and far between. In American Hardcore, The Zero Boys' Paul Mahern comments on this exact idea saying that in the mid-west we didn't have anyone paving the way. We had to "dig the well" ourselves. So, as you can see Midwesterners are the only true punks.

But then, as the movie goes on, we learn in interviews with the most important names in punk that this can't possibly be true. Westcoasters were the only true punk rockers... they started the hardcore movement. Oh wait, what about DC and the straight edgers? Latinos? Queers? Yup, in American Hardcore they're all, to one degree or another, credited as being the one and only embodiment of punk. Even with a relatively short running time of 100 minutes, the parade of self-importance gets tiresome pretty quickly.

Don't get me wrong. If you're into punk rock, there's a lot to love about American Hardcore. The performance footage in this film has to rank up there with some of the rarest concert footage ever committed to celluloid. Plus, there's just something that makes me smile about seeing third and fourth generation bootleg videos of basement gigs blown up to fit on the big screen. Now that's punk rock. It's obvious that director Paul Rachman has a deep love of all things punk and d.i.y. The movie appropriately looks and feels as if, much like Minor Threat's earliest seven inches, it was manually assembled by loving hands. It's like a Kinko'd show flyer brought to life. Few films give the motion graphic artists significant billing, but in this case it is obvious t hat John Vondracek's work is the heart and soul of the film.

Of course American Hardcore has more than its fair share of talking heads outlining the history and philosophy of the hardcore movement. As you'd expect, Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye are pretty informative and objective. The aforementioned Mahern and The Circle Jerks' frontman Keith Morris also serve to highlight a story that snakes from one end of the country to the other and back again in no discernible pattern. All is intertwined with the history of a single hardcore band, Bad Brains. As the elder statesmen of the movement, the Brains seemed to orchestrate the hardcore movement, grooming young bands, teaching them the ropes, and eventually even showing them when it was time to grow up and move on.

American Hardcore is an interesting film for the rare footage and historical perspective it provides, but for real insight into the philosophy of punk, I'd look elsewhere. In a trailer for a completely unrelated punk rock film, Ian MacKaye bemoans those who would claim ownership of a concept as undefinable as punk. But time and time again that's what you get in this film. These are grown men who peaked at fourteen, refusing to recognize anyone carrying on the d.i.y. legacy today. Look around, fellas. The independent spirit is more alive today than ever before. From music, to print, even... independent movies! These guys need to realize that you can't claim your own role in shaping history until you validate the new generation. Check out the trailer.