Hated (1994)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Todd Phillips

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | Music

Tagline:

GG Allin, le dernier vrai punk

Plot:

Documentary about notorious Murder Junkies lead singer GG Allin.

Plot Keywords:

Punk | Excrement | Archive Footage | Shockumentary | Beer Drinking

Awards:

1 win

Cast

GG Allin	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Merle Allin	...	Himself
Shireen Kadivar	...	Razor
Dee Dee Ramone	...	Himself
Geraldo Rivera	...	Himself (archive footage)
Unk	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Hated: G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies (USA) (video title)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Australia:R | France:-16 | New Zealand:R18 | UK:18

Trivia:

GG Allin died of a heroin overdose during post-production. The filmmakers shot additional material on his death for inclusion in the film. A bonus feature on the region 1 DVD shows a still of Allin lying in his coffin. He is dressed in a jacket and jock strap.

Movie Connections:

Features "Geraldo" (1987)

One-sided.

First off, let me say that I found "Hated" to be a very entertaining film, and I believe that G.G. Allin was as legitimate an American folksinger as Leadbelly or Woody Guthrie(his material was more, ummm...specialized, but listen to 'Gypsy Motherf*cker', 'Liquor-Slicked Highway', or 'Shove That Warrant Up Your Ass' to get an idea of what I'm talking about). But rather than being a balanced portrait, "Hated" is largely a performance. Some people will just respond, "So?" after reading that. But it matters because this film takes itself soooooo seriously. There are serious moments in it, of course, but there's a lot of humor as well...and a lot of artifice on Allin's part. Did he have a horrible childhood? Yes, by all accounts. Was there a time when his onstage antics were more sincere than when "Hated" was filmed? Yes--just check out the archival footage of his spoken-word performance in Boston in 1988; he wasn't kidding around.(Actually, the excerpts featured in the film don't even reveal all of the embarrassing, frightening, and nakedly emotional moments of that performance...you'll have to track down a bootleg video or DVD to see the whole enchilada.) But why, at thirty-six or thirty-seven--when you're out of prison and looking relatively healthy, and you've achieved at least some level of notoriety--do you still feel the need to cut yourself, eat your own sh*t, and beat up your fans? (Okay, fine, he had some problems. So do most other people, but very few of them react to negative circumstances the way Allin did.) The answer is that G.G. Allin apparently DIDN'T want to do this anymore. Just before his death, according to biographer Joe Coughlin, Allin said that he wanted to retire from the punk scene and go into country music. And why not? When you're approaching forty, you simply can't withstand the kind of self-abuse that Allin's fans had come to expect. But he soldiered on for another couple of years, doing precisely what WAS expected of him, and he died because of it(if indirectly). G.G. Allin had a natural, genuine talent, but he painted himself into a corner pretty early on. He had a daughter, he was a fan of Captain Kangaroo, and at one point he had a damned fine singing voice. The monstrous character that he played--and sometimes became--was interesting, but it's a shame that "Hated" lets us see only that facet of his personality.