mstomaso Nice and nostalgic for those who were there.Potentially misleading and perhaps too long for those who were not there and don't get the nostalgia.My comments are more of a reaction than a review. I won't pretend to be objective. I lived through this and experienced it differently from the 'leading lights' who were interviewed in the film. I met and even hung out with a few of the folks in the film over the three years (1980-1982) when I was in and out of NYC and Philly scenes. Of course, hardcore had not yet been commercialized at this time and none of them were regarded as legends. It's great to see that most of them are still true believers and haven't developed regrets, but it's really odd that they are still saying exactly the same things about HC that they were saying twenty years ago. Isn't hindsight supposed to be 20/20 or something? Well... really... it's all a matter of perspective, and that's the point of this review. From 1979 to 1984 I was a member of a band which crossed over from punk to hardcore in 1980. I began with them at the age of 14 and stuck around until, as Ian Mackaye put it, "hardcore checked out". Being part of the NJ/NYC punk community, and having grown up in a small rural town in central Jersey, my perspective on the whole business is a bit different.... But, again... that's the point, isn't it? From my point of view, the film has one major flaw - Most of the interviews seem to have developed out of a set of basic misconceptions: (1) that hardcore was about something in particular, (2) that the leaders of the most popular hardcore bands were somehow experts in what hardcore was and (3) that the portion of the country where hardcore got the most early media attention was somehow more important than the rest of the world. I was never a big fan of hardcore's regionalism (which was a big deal in the scenes I was involved with) and was interested mainly in bands which were original, energetic and fun regardless of where they came from. Sadly, the east coast frequently exhibited symptoms of an inferiority complex because of the commercial and media attention California got - a couple of examples are the titles of early eastern Punk and HC compilations:Philadelphia: Get Off Our Backs We're Doing it Too. NYC: New York Thrash and The Big Apple Rotten to the Core Boston: This is Boston, Not L.A.Telling, ain't it?Because of my own experiences, the interviews of NYC, Washington DC and Boston band members resonated more strongly with me than the California-centered stuff. Don't get me wrong, I loved the DKs, Black Flag, the CJs, Fear, X, UXA, The Avengers, and many other West-coasters, but I still reject the adoption of the archetype American Punk lifestyle which was drawn out of stereotypes imported by the mass media from California. From my perspective, punk was truly anti-conformist, and CoC's comments about the fascist anti-fascism that became a major component of HC late in it's life were dead-on accurate. It's as if a whole bunch of fools turned on Quincy, saw an inaccurate representation of slam dancing based on things that were happening in particular parts of Southern California (where Quincy was filmed) and all-of-a-sudden decided to get mohawks and leather jackets and go beat up people at shows. Maybe New York police have bigger and better things to do, but I do not remember a single of the 100s of shows I went to or played which were ever even threatened with a shut-down, let alone attracting the attention of more than a few squad cars. And honestly, I don't remember any NYC or Philly cops doing anything much worse than shaking their heads and rolling their eyes during these incidents. Maybe NYC punks were radically different from Calpunks, because I knew very few people in HC and/or punk who would ever espouse hating any group of people in a broad-brush manner such as police and hippies. For me and most of my friends HC was a chance to have fun, get up on stage and play, help other people have fun, and to express ourselves socially and politically with an audience which could relate and appreciated pretty much whatever you threw at them. Most of the messages were against violence, against stereotyping, against injustice, and even against drugs. And the bands all supported each other, whether or not they agreed about politics, music or whatever. Really nice. Sure the dancing got kind of rough at times, but it only got really bad after that fateful episode of Quincy. This is a good film. I was very excited to see the respect with which the Bad Brains were treated and the range of excellent bands chosen for the interviews. The film is really just a lengthy series of edited monologues and dialogs from interviews conducted by the director. The cinematography is straightforward and really nothing special - fine for what was intended. There are relatively few musical interludes (mostly poorly filmed cam-jobs), and no complete songs. The film serves well as a memoir for old punks like myself, and a good introduction to the major tropes and official mythology of the hardcore movement for those of later generations. Don't mistake the generalizing opinions of the interviewees (or mine for that matter) to be representative of anything besides the individual opinions that they are, however. And remember always - no matter what anybody says about hardcore, Gang Green summed it all up better than anybody in their song "Have Fun"We just wanna have some fun We just wanna have some fun While we're young enough To get away with it.!

philler2 I remember reading a review of American Hardcore in one of the weeklies in Portland. It stated something to the extent that if you know hardcore, you will not learn anything and if you know nothing about hardcore, you won't learn much. I can't agree more.As someone that has a fair amount of knowledge of the history of the American Hardcore movement, I don't feel like I learned much new about hardcore. And, I have talked to others that know little about hardcore and they had a hard time tracking.I was also surprised about some of the things that were missing. How could Maximum Rock n' Roll be left out? Maybe the Dead Kennedys were left out because of all the legal stuff going on with them now or maybe because a lot of old punks don't like them now. I know there is only so much room and info someone can squeeze into two hours, but it is hard to see how certain things were left out of it.I think it was a good attempt. The director should have made a better decision and either make it a movie for someone that knew nothing or a movie for the more advanced viewer. Still, if you are a fan of hardcore or you are perhaps a younger viewer that has some interest in the hardcore punk movement of the early 80's, it is worth renting.

MisterWhiplash American Hardcore isn't the most complete or encyclopedic documentary on the punk scene that had so many tangents and areas to be considered, in a world where three chords was usually enough and attitude was just as important as getting up to play. There was a constant though in the hardcore movement that went something like this: "f*** you, we'll play whatever we want". Because, as seen by those interviewed that were in the bands, they were apart of a whole musical scene with the roughest edge and most violent demeanor. The filmmakers make the main point that hardcore came out of a rebellion against the bog of high-fluent rock and roll of the 70s, and as something even harsher for those who didn't go to the Ramones or Sex Pistols shows. It started with bands like the Germs, a band that almost couldn't play but then, somehow, got the dirtiest, mangiest spirit going when they did take control of the stage. There were other bands too, of course, and the major ones that set off the hardcore scene were Bad Brains, Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, and later on Agnostic Front. Some of these bands, like the Boston bands, even have ironic sides to them, like in forbidding alcohol from their gritty shows like SS Decontrol.Other bands that one might want to see more of talked about like Agnostic Front or the Beastie Boys or more bands from the Midwest do get their mention, but the filmmakers seem to keep a set number of bands they talk about, and also craft things simply from the interviews. How did they start playing? No explanation needed, as anyone could play, almost (unless if you were part of the bible-thumping 'peace-punks' of the Bad Brain sect). How did they spread the word without record label support? Lots of touring around in vans all over the States, with new bands popping up every time an LA band would go through and churn up bands not seen before. The role of the Police? Instigators and handlers of riots mostly. And, finally, though a little awkwardly, they show how the first wave of hardcore dissipated by a feeling of 'I've had enough' from all of the nearly boring stereotypes coming out of the punk scene, as well as a lessening of fans.All of this is presented in some interesting interviews (there are so many to list here, but I especially liked the Black Flag and Minority Threat interviews, Bad Brains better as a musical act than in interviews), and clips shot very appropriately amateurishly, with mosh-pits going crazy like it's nothing. But all of this is also a little short, or rather some parts are short and other parts get more attention really, and the musical performances, oddly enough, don't get the same time given to the talking. It lacks the complete voracity of the Decline of Western Civilization by putting in the clips of shows as little cliff notes, so to speak, of what the interviewees are talking about. Still, there are some cool pleasures to be had, like seeing the names of obscure punk bands like Eddie and the Subtitles, or the more crafty, dangerous ones like a band promoting cop killing right in its title. There's even, to be sure, some laughs to be had at the low-end of the amateur spectrum, where singers belt out songs in mumbled mouths.How much American Hardcore will appeal to the viewer will depend on their taste in punk music, and non-fans will probably not entirely be converted, and at the least provides a glimpse into a by-gone era of a unique, 'f***-off' underground in the horrid Regean 80s.

dhlough-1 American Hardcore is a relatively thorough examination of the hardcore punk movement in this country from 1980 through 1986. Set against Reagan's 50's vision of the 1980's, these bands – from SoCal to Vancouver, Minneapolis to New York, D.C. to Boston – channeled their youthful rage into an industrial buzzsaw angst that politicized American homogeneity, and paved the way for the triumph of Nirvana and the "alternative nation" of the nineties.Paul Rachman's documentary, based on Steven Blush's book American Hardcore: A Tribal History, plays a lot like the music sounds: lo-fi, blurry, energetic, confused, and often very funny. A lot of screen time is given to two of the best bands from the movement – SoCal's Black Flag and D.C.'s Bad Brains – but the live performance clips, most of them from lo-tech sources, don't give the lockstep rhythms and passionate intensity of the music its due. The grungy footage is distant, historical; it places a gauze around the chaos of the time. Considered in perspective, too many of the bands sound similar, the effect monochromatic and, ultimately, uninteresting. Which is too bad, because many of the major players from that period – the two mentioned above, as well as Flipper, Minor Threat and Hüsker Dü – left behind seminal work. If the filmmakers could have used snippets of the actual recordings, the movie might have been more cohesive and involving, and envisioned the next phase of this endlessly regenerating culture. Documentaries, regardless of subject, should expand their subject. American Hardcore often feels as insular as the underground community of dissenters it features. But for music lovers – who should include this subgenre on their list of interests – it's refreshing to be reminded how technical expertise and craft can pale in the face of true passion.