Wassup Rockers

Larry Clark – 2005 – USA

This was really a wasted opportunity for director/child pornographer Larry Clark.  There were moments when I was prepared to declare it not only his best movie, but his first that I could even stand.  Then there are far too many other moments when his usual smarminess takes full reign, as if he is deliberately trying to keep anyone from liking the film.  The set-up goes well enough, capturing a day in the life of a group of Latino-American skateboarders who are also in a punk band.  The fact that they’re musicians is such a selling point of the movie, you’d think they’d make more of it, but after an early scene of them rehearsing, that’s the last we hear of the matter.  Instead, Clark begins his not-so-subtle remake of The Warriors, as the gang treks to Beverly Hills and then, after a series of adventures, tries to make its way back home.  Along the way, they are waylaid by stereotypically jerky cops, siren-like girls, and assorted other Hollywood trash.  Just when we’re ready to embrace this movie with its naturalistic performances and careful character study, from left field Clark hurls at us one painfully bad and mean-spirited gag after another, such as a drunken rich lady who electrocutes herself in her own bathtub.  The DVD features a little documentary in which the 60-ish Clark is seen trying to pal around with these 15-year-old boys like he’s one of them.  It’s really rather pathetic and a reminder of how out-of-touch he is with not only reality, but any conception of himself as a dirty-old-man filmmaker.