What We Do Is Secret

Who? Well quite, and that may well be the problem for any casual movie fan who happens to like musical bio-pictures. Jan Paul Beahm during his short run for fame was better known as Darby Crash, lead singer and founding member of Los Angeles punk band The Germs. Firmly picking up on the punk ethic for doing it yourself, Crash and his band made waves across L.A. for a short period of time. Much like The Sex Pistols back in the UK, The Germs were blighted by being unable to play venues as their reputation preceded them. With Crash growing ever more erratic as he tried to execute the various strands of his so called 5 year plan, those around him invariably suffered. Here director Rodger Grossman attempts to tell the "true" story of the life and death of an enigmatic young man on a "crash" course to oblivion.

With low production values and a choppy attempt at being a semi rockumentary, What We Do Is secret is really only of interest to fans of the band or those wishing to bone up on American punk rock circa 1976-1980. Even tho myself, an ageing old British punker, quite liked The Germs, this film only exists because of two major factors. For the facts are that outside of L.A. they were hardly known at the time. It's only because of Crash's subsequent suicide at a young age {on the day John Lennon was shot and killed} and guitarist Pat Smear's future involvement with Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, that the band have had a reappraisal. With minimal input cut onto disc, one has to wonder if someone is trying to build up a legend that doesn't actually exist? What can be said with confidence is that the film at least brings the L.A. punk scene to notice. With all the historical talk about the New York punk scene that was born out of CBGB'S and Max's Kansas City, it often gets forgotten that L.A. had its moments too.

The cast here are pretty much the run of the mill performers one expects from such a production. Ranging from adequate (Shane West as Crash) to very decent (Rick Gonzalez of Coach Carter fame as Smear), Grossman's film will not be remembered for any great thesping. And since Crash is not very likable, or engaging on an intellectual level, the finale is unlikely to strike you with a sadness born out of the waste of a young life. However, the soundtrack crackles with punk vibrancy and emotive potency, and definitely some of the concert sequences have the look and feel of the original punk rock era. But ultimately the piece remains only worth an interest to an undemanding and small selection of music fans. Oh and 70s fashion guru's as well one thinks. 5.5/10

It's simply this: Shane West, as a singer and performer of Germs songs as Darby Crash in What We Do is Secret, works fine. In the 1/4 of the film where the filmmakers turned their attention to the on-stage performances for the film (or one-time album recording), West does very good work, so good in fact one may be tempted to revisit just those aggressive and loud and messy and amazingly crude songs when the film is broadcast on a loop on IFC (you know it will be). And yet, for all of West's feracity in the part as the singer, when he has to *act* as Darby Crash, it's at best halfway believable and at worst very stupid.

There is a resemblance, somewhere, between West- who previously appeared in such films as, yes, A Walk to Remember- and the grimy and death-by-junk singer who had a real intelligence and some crazy ideas. But at the same time West also looks and sounds and sometimes emotes just like what he is: a good but definite pretty boy. Darby Crash was many things, but a pretty boy assuredly not. And because the writing means to try its damndest to put a lot of the emotional weight on Crash, many moments (though not all) with West as Crash fall flat. Thankfully, by the third act, he isn't as irksome, and it almost turns into a halfway decent portrayal of such a true cult figure (cult in the literal sense perhaps).

And yet I can't put all blame on West, or even for the other competent-to-good-to-not-so-good supporting actors playing other members of the Germs. It's the first-time writer/director Rodger Grossman, who hasn't quite figured out at times how to be very confident with the camera, and at best is most daring (in somewhat predictable ways) during the musical sequences and perhaps one shot where a pool is reflected. The rest is a lot of rote work as far as the dramatic stuff goes - when it comes to the "iterviews" done with the people in the band, the groupies, the b-word "manager/girlfriend/mother" of Darby Crash, they fare much better. Indeed if Grossman had been more decisive with how to take the direction of the film (as a documentary done with actors filling in the parts and going through actual things they may or may not have said), it would have worked better either way as gritty bio-pic or bittersweet pseudo-documentary.

I probably sound harder on this movie than the actual vote/rating would say. Maybe it's because as a big fan of The Germs I was slightly more forgiving than other people may be. For the uninitiated it definitely gives a precisely strange and f***-ed up idea of who Crash was and how he drifted into heroin. And as well the uninitiated will find that it stinks. It's for die-hards only.

This coulda been good but it was pretty awful. Bad acting by most of the cast, poor direction and the sound was crappy (although the crowd noises during the concert scenes sounded real). I am not a fan of the Germs and although I do respect what they tried to do but this seemed like a whole lot of nothing. If this was an accurate portrayal of Darby Crash I do not think he is deserving of a biopic that makes him out to be an original innovator. He was a Iggy Pop wannabe and then an Adam Ant poser. It was embarrassing; I could not wait for him to OD so the film would be over. The majority of the songs performed in concert were awful.

Hope one day someone does a good film about the West Coast Punk scene. Maybe a film about SST records and the bands who recorded for them would be good.

This movie was great, both to inform people who care to learn, and people who are already interested in the subject and punks in general. I read a comment in here that said this movie was too "clean" and that punks were "scum and proud". If this is a reason to dislike this movie then you obviously are not seeing things how you're supposed to. The whole mind set of punks is being themselves and being individual because they feel that's what is right. In their minds they're not doing anything wrong; in their minds, they were the ones who were truly clean, where as the high and mighty assholes of society living their fake lives were the ones who were scum and proud. This film is through the viewpoint of the punks, to better relate to them. Keep that in mind when watching this film, it isn't like every other punk movie spat out by the media to show how outrageous and unethical punk is, whoring it like it's some kind of circus act, if you're looking for that in a punk movie, you're missing the point and should steer clear of this film.

I'm sorry but this movie is awful. Very surface, poorly made, badly acted- a major disappointment. Shane West is passable, but almost everyone else in the film is bad.

And the script- they have taken the seedy, turbulent life of Darby Crash and turned it into an after school special. Actually, after school specials were more interesting than this.

I am shocked that Pat Smear and the other surviving members of The Germs would have anything to do with this film. It makes them all seem one dimensional and uninteresting. Stick with Penelope Spheeris' great documentary THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION- it will have to do until a better Germs biopic comes along.