directed by: Rodger Grossman
USA, 2007, 90 min
This new biopic sheds some light on what drove Crash into punk rock as his individual chronicler of art and personal excess. The ninety minute film directed by Rodger Grossman has the look and feel of a slick rockumentary and offers a rather sterile look into the seething chaos that was the Los Angeles punk scene in the late 1970’s.
The film opens with pretty boy actor Shane West as Crash, in close-up, extolling on his plan for some kind of punk rock scene domination via “beer and personal damage”. We see him gather a few untalented folks together to create a band that eventually (after a few line-up shifts, usually centered on drummers) became 90% attitude and only 10% talent. Crash is loosely portrayed as everything from a soldier for personal expression, a fascist wannabe as well as in turmoil about his sexuality. Grossman and co-writer Michelle Baer Ghaffari seem to have sensed that if this film was going to have any chance at reaching anyone besides punk music archaeologists they needed to make Crash and his band seem somehow heroic in their quest. It works if you suspend disbelief and forget that Crash, while able to write cheerless, self-centered lyrics with the best of them, was eventually just another victim of a scene that accepted all societal outsiders as their own regardless of their demons or inability to function without some a stimulant or depressant close at hand.
“What We Do Is Secret” aims high as it attempts to concisely portray exactly what drove Crash to suicide at age twenty-two. His slow, purposeful, downhill slide, the concern of his friends and Crash’s complete disregard for anything but his own needs makes for some entertaining scenes. The music production by former member Pat Smear works wonderfully and the support actors all put in fine performances.
Perhaps it’s still too soon after thirty odd years to put paid to a music scene and the characters that it created. Many of the early punk bands are still performing or re-forming to good result. The temper of the times today – world food and energy crises, wildly unstable world leaders – is not too dissimilar to the stew that drove kids into musical revolt all those years ago. Shane West now fronts re-formed Germs. Whether you think this is a good idea or some kind of mockery matters not. With this film and others like it our recent past is being mined for new popular consumption. They may have released the first Los Angeles punk single but with the death of Crash and the ensuing flood of much better L.A. based hardcore groups The Germs really can’t be thought of as much more than a tragic footnote. This film aims to polish that footnote into a gleaming Iron Cross and does so with mixed results.
I hated the film. Glossy as hell.
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