A movie biography has two distinct challenges. It must be a well made film and it also has to make the audience understand what was significant or noteworthy about its subject. What We Do Is Secret succeeds at the former and fails at the latter, producing a motion picture that's as much an obscure curiosity as the characters it focuses on.
Set in the punk rock scene of late 1970s Los Angeles, this story is about the bold, tormented and ultimately used up Darby Crash (Shane West) and a band he led called The Germs. Darby formed the band as an expression of his contempt for the world and everything in it. He started it before he or any of his band mates could play their instruments, simultaneously lashing out at the expectations of the audience while mocking the band's own pretensions at significance. The movie follows the fairly predictable course of showing the bands ignoble beginnings, their rise to success and then the excesses that led them to destruction, but setting the tale within the subculture of late 70s punk rock gives it a slightly different sensibility. Inside that world, audacious and intemperate failure was prized more than triumph, self-abasement became a form of self-glorification and anti-social behavior became normality.
But while What We Do Is Secret recounts the history of Darby Crash and The Germs quite effectively and gives us a peek inside the musical/cultural community in which they rose and fell it does absolutely nothing to explain why any of it matters. It provides virtually no context for what punk rock was railing against and no indication of what was meaningful about it's anger and resentment. So the film is constantly giving the viewer these long reenactments of supposedly important moments of Darby and his band, but they have no weight or depth to them. Unless you're already a full fledged fan of The Germs, you're left to wonder what's the point of it all.
That's especially problematic for a story about punk rock because both punks and their music are fairly unpleasant. In fact, being unpleasant was sort of the whole point. Punk rock was a musical and behavioral eruption against the pop songs and popular culture of its day. However, this film never lets you see or hear any of the world outside the punk ecosystem, robbing Darby and The Germs of the ability to shock and provoke they so desperately sought. Late 70s punks aren't that controversial or unsettling when seen and heard with early 21st century eyes and ears, largely because the most powerful and palatable aspects of the sound and lifestyle have been absorbed by broader society.
Shane West does a good job as Darby Crash, projecting a convincing intelligence and arrogance that masked self-loathing. The best part of the performance isn't how he portrays Darby's conflict over his own homosexuality. It's how he shows Darby becoming the prisoner of his own design. He launches himself like a rage-fueled missile against society but as his rage dissipates, as all rage does, he doesn't know how to change his trajectory. Eventually, Darby can't and doesn't want to live the life he's crafted for himself and he has no idea how to stop or change it. West channels that helplessness almost every time he's on screen.
The rest of the cast is okay, though they're given little to do except for a rather poorly defined struggle for control between the drummer for The Germs and Darby's not-really-gay boyfriend. There's a passel of name dropping from the 1970s LA music scene, with only the brief appearances of Joan Jett and Belinda Carlise registering for anyone who wasn't living in Los Angeles in at that time.
Darby Crash eventually committed suicide. His death was overlooked because he killed himself on the same night that John Lennon was murdered. What We Do Is Secret won't make anyone question the justice or appropriateness of that. It doesn't tell us anything about the man, his band or his time that needs to be remembered or mourned, particularly when compared to the tragic end of one of the greatest cultural figures of the second half of the 20th century. No matter how well you tell a story, if it ends with no one understanding why it had to be told, it can only be considered a failure.
Middle aged punk rockers who remember The Germs might get a kick out of this movie. There's no point it anyone else watching it.
Set in the punk rock scene of late 1970s Los Angeles, this story is about the bold, tormented and ultimately used up Darby Crash (Shane West) and a band he led called The Germs. Darby formed the band as an expression of his contempt for the world and everything in it. He started it before he or any of his band mates could play their instruments, simultaneously lashing out at the expectations of the audience while mocking the band's own pretensions at significance. The movie follows the fairly predictable course of showing the bands ignoble beginnings, their rise to success and then the excesses that led them to destruction, but setting the tale within the subculture of late 70s punk rock gives it a slightly different sensibility. Inside that world, audacious and intemperate failure was prized more than triumph, self-abasement became a form of self-glorification and anti-social behavior became normality.
But while What We Do Is Secret recounts the history of Darby Crash and The Germs quite effectively and gives us a peek inside the musical/cultural community in which they rose and fell it does absolutely nothing to explain why any of it matters. It provides virtually no context for what punk rock was railing against and no indication of what was meaningful about it's anger and resentment. So the film is constantly giving the viewer these long reenactments of supposedly important moments of Darby and his band, but they have no weight or depth to them. Unless you're already a full fledged fan of The Germs, you're left to wonder what's the point of it all.
That's especially problematic for a story about punk rock because both punks and their music are fairly unpleasant. In fact, being unpleasant was sort of the whole point. Punk rock was a musical and behavioral eruption against the pop songs and popular culture of its day. However, this film never lets you see or hear any of the world outside the punk ecosystem, robbing Darby and The Germs of the ability to shock and provoke they so desperately sought. Late 70s punks aren't that controversial or unsettling when seen and heard with early 21st century eyes and ears, largely because the most powerful and palatable aspects of the sound and lifestyle have been absorbed by broader society.
Shane West does a good job as Darby Crash, projecting a convincing intelligence and arrogance that masked self-loathing. The best part of the performance isn't how he portrays Darby's conflict over his own homosexuality. It's how he shows Darby becoming the prisoner of his own design. He launches himself like a rage-fueled missile against society but as his rage dissipates, as all rage does, he doesn't know how to change his trajectory. Eventually, Darby can't and doesn't want to live the life he's crafted for himself and he has no idea how to stop or change it. West channels that helplessness almost every time he's on screen.
The rest of the cast is okay, though they're given little to do except for a rather poorly defined struggle for control between the drummer for The Germs and Darby's not-really-gay boyfriend. There's a passel of name dropping from the 1970s LA music scene, with only the brief appearances of Joan Jett and Belinda Carlise registering for anyone who wasn't living in Los Angeles in at that time.
Darby Crash eventually committed suicide. His death was overlooked because he killed himself on the same night that John Lennon was murdered. What We Do Is Secret won't make anyone question the justice or appropriateness of that. It doesn't tell us anything about the man, his band or his time that needs to be remembered or mourned, particularly when compared to the tragic end of one of the greatest cultural figures of the second half of the 20th century. No matter how well you tell a story, if it ends with no one understanding why it had to be told, it can only be considered a failure.
Middle aged punk rockers who remember The Germs might get a kick out of this movie. There's no point it anyone else watching it.