Madex Movie Review: What We Do Is Secret.
More like, what we do is boring and off topic and ulitmatly worthless filmmaking.
Its sorta sad when a bio-pic is basically a paint by numbers coloring book. Filmed line for line from the wikipedia page about The Late Singer of the Germs, Darby Crash. (Accordingly, I think the filmmaker himself wrote the wikipedia page himself). The film abandoned the rough edge of punk rock in the late 70’s and turned its back on the Los Angeles landscape. Sure the attention to detail on the venues was there, but how about something from Los Angeles? This labor of love film made on a shoe string budget either had to please too many people to be able to make decent film or the film maker was just too close to the material to step back and see what a film needs to be to be entertaining. No one likes to be lead around by the hand and shown what is cool, who is cool, – This happened here, then this happened then…that happened then he was dead. Its sad this movie sucked cause it could have had something to say about punk rock, alienated youth, the birth of punk in Los Angeles. The performance footage was just a rip off Penelope Spheeris’s film The Decline of Western Civilization, which is the only part that made it sorta seem creditable. The wardrobe department got everyone’s clothes perfect for the scenes that were ripped from the documentary. The film misses the mark it didn’t leave you with a sense that Darby did anything worth while. Never explored why the Germs matter in Los Angeles punk history. Glazed over the fact pat smear the actor acted nothing like the real pat smear. They made punks seem routine. They even made hot dogs boring. I say pass it. It had the pace of riding the bus with my sister, and was directed in a bubble.
One fun part though. Darth Mal from Star Wars Episode 1 is in the film. Actor Ray Park.
Again, skip it.
1 Madex out of 5.
