Film review: 'Hard Core Logo'
A punk musical misery tour, Canadian independent Bruce McDonald's "Hard Core Logo" joins the growing list of provocative fake documentaries, or fiction films made to look like their real-life cousins. Sometimes it works ("This Is Spinal Tap") and other times it does not ("Waiting for Guffman"). The commercial potential of such ventures, including McDonald's compelling film, remains the same as that for most documentaries -- hard-core peanuts.
Bowing locally Friday at UCLA in the series "Borderlines: New Canadian Cinema," "Hard Core Logo" is equal parts biting satire and an homage to modern-day rebels. The title of the movie is the name of a fictitious British Columbian foursome, who reunite after several years to headline a "Rock Against Guns" benefit for a somewhat dubious cause.
The concert turns into a five-city tour, with McDonald (as the director of the documentary) and crew tagging along. The bickering, volatile members of the band -- led by old friends Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon) and Billy Tallent Callum Keith Rennie) -- are fleshed-out creations and "Hard Core Logo" spares little in its portrait of their grungy lifestyle.
Many of the usual cliches of pop music culture are employed, but the screenplay by Noel S. Baker, based on the novel by Michael Turner, is wickedly on-target. For starters, the initial benefit concert is for a fallen comrade, an older performer who influenced Dick. But there's little truth to the story that Bucky Haight (Julian Richings) has lost both legs after being gunned down.
Dick, with his Mohawk haircut and Bruce Willis-like scowl, takes credit for the band's past successes and excesses. Tallent is a lead guitarist of some renown, who has an upcoming gig with a bigger band and tries to break out of the loser mode of his fellows. When the promised gig falls through, about when Hard Core Logo is at their lowest, Tallent is devastated.
But it's lead singer Dick who has the toughest demons to battle, while bassist John (John Pyper-Ferguson) and drummer Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson) represent different end-results of a lifetime of drugs and partying. Crowds for the reunion tour are either nonexistent or tepid, but the musical scenes are evocatively staged. The ragged odyssey to Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton allows the group ample time to self-destruct.
A visit to the all-too-healthy Haight climaxes in a group LSD trip, while the final concert scene ends with Dick attacking Tallent on stage, while John in only his underwear reads from the grim journal he has been writing. It's a bleak, bleak picture of the marginally talented and antisocial, which is just funny enough to carry one through the somewhat shocking conclusion.
Dillon (lead singer of the group Headstones) and Rennie ("Timecop", "Double Happiness") are perfectly matched and dominate the film, from their spitting and thrashing on stage to the many expletive-heavy confrontations. Filming in black-and-white, McDonald ("Highway 61", "Dance Me Outside" ) employs split-screens, voice-overs and several other documentary devices to good effect.
HARD CORE LOGO
Terminal City Pictures and Shadow Shows
An Ed Festus production
Director Bruce McDonald
Producers Christine Haebler, Brian Dennis
Executive producer James Head
Writer Noel S. Baker
Based on the novel by Michael Turner
Director of cinematography Danny Nowak
Production designer David Willson
Music Schaun Tozer
Editor Reginald Harkema
Black and white/stereo
Cast:
Joe Dick Hugh Dillon
Billy Tallent Callum Keith Rennie
John Oxenberger John Pyper-Ferguson
Pipefitter Bernie Coulson
Bucky Haight Julian Richings
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Bowing locally Friday at UCLA in the series "Borderlines: New Canadian Cinema," "Hard Core Logo" is equal parts biting satire and an homage to modern-day rebels. The title of the movie is the name of a fictitious British Columbian foursome, who reunite after several years to headline a "Rock Against Guns" benefit for a somewhat dubious cause.
The concert turns into a five-city tour, with McDonald (as the director of the documentary) and crew tagging along. The bickering, volatile members of the band -- led by old friends Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon) and Billy Tallent Callum Keith Rennie) -- are fleshed-out creations and "Hard Core Logo" spares little in its portrait of their grungy lifestyle.
Many of the usual cliches of pop music culture are employed, but the screenplay by Noel S. Baker, based on the novel by Michael Turner, is wickedly on-target. For starters, the initial benefit concert is for a fallen comrade, an older performer who influenced Dick. But there's little truth to the story that Bucky Haight (Julian Richings) has lost both legs after being gunned down.
Dick, with his Mohawk haircut and Bruce Willis-like scowl, takes credit for the band's past successes and excesses. Tallent is a lead guitarist of some renown, who has an upcoming gig with a bigger band and tries to break out of the loser mode of his fellows. When the promised gig falls through, about when Hard Core Logo is at their lowest, Tallent is devastated.
But it's lead singer Dick who has the toughest demons to battle, while bassist John (John Pyper-Ferguson) and drummer Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson) represent different end-results of a lifetime of drugs and partying. Crowds for the reunion tour are either nonexistent or tepid, but the musical scenes are evocatively staged. The ragged odyssey to Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton allows the group ample time to self-destruct.
A visit to the all-too-healthy Haight climaxes in a group LSD trip, while the final concert scene ends with Dick attacking Tallent on stage, while John in only his underwear reads from the grim journal he has been writing. It's a bleak, bleak picture of the marginally talented and antisocial, which is just funny enough to carry one through the somewhat shocking conclusion.
Dillon (lead singer of the group Headstones) and Rennie ("Timecop", "Double Happiness") are perfectly matched and dominate the film, from their spitting and thrashing on stage to the many expletive-heavy confrontations. Filming in black-and-white, McDonald ("Highway 61", "Dance Me Outside" ) employs split-screens, voice-overs and several other documentary devices to good effect.
HARD CORE LOGO
Terminal City Pictures and Shadow Shows
An Ed Festus production
Director Bruce McDonald
Producers Christine Haebler, Brian Dennis
Executive producer James Head
Writer Noel S. Baker
Based on the novel by Michael Turner
Director of cinematography Danny Nowak
Production designer David Willson
Music Schaun Tozer
Editor Reginald Harkema
Black and white/stereo
Cast:
Joe Dick Hugh Dillon
Billy Tallent Callum Keith Rennie
John Oxenberger John Pyper-Ferguson
Pipefitter Bernie Coulson
Bucky Haight Julian Richings
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/16/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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