★ 6 / 10
**A duel of generations, a school, angry teenagers
Filipe Manuel Neto
**A duel of generations, a school, angry teenagers and lots of rock.** This is a film for young adults that takes advantage of traditional teenage rebellion…
**A duel of generations, a school, angry teenagers and lots of rock.**
This is a film for young adults that takes advantage of traditional teenage rebellion and the talent of Christian Slater, a good script and a good soundtrack. It's not masterful, but it's ideal for a Saturday afternoon and has aged very well: thirty years after it was made and marketed, it's still young and fresh.
The story focuses on a clandestine radio station created by an angry and angry teenager who was forced to move house and is in a place where he doesn't know anyone and doesn't even feel comfortable. The radio is an outlet, it is a means of expressing inner anger, and it is nothing truly serious, but it becomes increasingly relevant as it acquires a very loyal local audience, who listen to him as if he were a guru without even knowing it. his identity, and allows himself to be carried away by his words in a wave of riots and protests that are directed, in particular, against the management of the local high school.
The story is quite good, it is well written, and the duel between the two characters (the young teenager assumed to be the radio presenter and the plenipotentiary director of the school) mirrors not only the oldest conflict of generations but also the permanent conflict between powerful and weak in society. None of this is particularly new, but the way it is served and presented was creative and wonderfully entertaining. The problem here is that it's a film for teenagers, it's too light, and it lacks secondary characters that are at least as complete and impactful as the two central characters.
Christian Slater lived in his youth, the happiest days of his career, and gave us good characters in good films. With time and success, he became a star and almost a synonym of rebellion and irreverence, an apprentice of James Dean who exploded onto the screen, guaranteeing the success of his films and the influx of young people to the cinema. Time, however, would show that Slater was, in each film, playing a single character, which was the one he tried to revive in his personal life, increasingly complicated by addictions and problems with the authorities. Annie Ross, on the other hand, gives us mature, well-developed work, suitably dark and dense, never allowing Slater to feel alone in the spotlight.
On a technical level, it is in the soundtrack that we find the film's strong point. The songs include hit songs by Leonard Cohen, Pixies, Ivan Neville and Cowboy Junkies, and most of them are very easy to know for anyone who lived through the 90s and 2000s, that is, everyone or almost everyone. The rest doesn't really matter: with no mistakes to regret, it doesn't exceed the average at any particular point.
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★ 8 / 10
Do you care where your parents are?
FlashCallahan
Mark has just moved to Arizona from the East Coast. His parents give him a short-wave radio so he can talk to his pals. But he sets up a pirate Station, going…
Mark has just moved to Arizona from the East Coast. His parents give him a short-wave radio so he can talk to his pals.
But he sets up a pirate Station, going under the pseudonym of D.J. Hard Harry, and becomes a hero to his peers while inspiring the wrath of the local high school principal.
When one of Harry's listeners commits suicide and chaos breaks out at the school, the authorities are called in to put a stop to Harry's broadcasts....
Made in a time when Slater was at the height of his Heartthrob-ness, and to be fair he was a pretty big deal in the early nineties (if you were fifteen), The film is like a big sunshine Strawberry smoothie, with a little teen angst thrown in.
Slater does channel a kind of profane, alcohol induced Spider-man in his performance. By day, a shy, spectacle wearing back of the class type student, by night, well, you get the gist.
And he has never been better, and I really don't know what happened from there. His Harry is something many the targeted demographic could only dream of doing.
He's honest, funny, sympathetic, and full of empathy, yet he still inspires anarchy across the very small town, and obviously, it irks the older population of the town.
The soundtrack too, is wonderful, playing a kind of narrative in itself, and only adds a little more depth to the film.
There are minor flaws in the film, stereotypes are rife throughout the film, but it wasn't aimed at most people, it was aimed at misunderstood teens, and at one point in our lives, we were one of those.
Still cool 23 years on....
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83%
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Oh yeah this is gonna be good. Thanks a ton!