Pump Up the Volume

This is a good movie let down by uneven direction and 1-dimensional characters (besides the 2 leads). I would probably love this movie a lot, had I seen it when it came out in 1990. Now, the teenage angst (Slater's rants) thing is getting tiresome and whiny to me. Nevertheless, I want to point out how wonderful the scenes between Slater and Mathis are, in particular the scene where they kind of tangoed around each other and the scene where they had their first kiss. These scenes are full of playfulness, seduction, anticipation and uneasy charms. I hope there are more good movie roles to come for both of them.

Lastly, I think the DVD release could really use some special features, like audio commentary by the director, Slater and Mathis. Since this is Slater's personal favorite, it'd be great to hear his perspective.

I loved this film

When I was 17 I first saw the second half of this movie on TV, the next day I scoured my local video shops to buy the film so that I could watch the first half.

I know that sounds a little sad but I really felt that at the time this film was spot on. Parents do seem to hate you, it is incredibly hard to talk to a girl that you want to ask out and school is the last place you ever want to be. This film had the emotions just about right.

I now see its faults but I still feel that it is an excellent movie to its targeted age group, everyone who ever wanted to "rise up in the cafeteria and stab them (teachers) with your plastic fork".

I could fill this review with quotes, the speech on why teen suicide is a bad idea is up there with the "Am I funny?" scene in goodfella's.

Christian Slater is excellent, apparently it's his favourite movie and you can see that he enjoyed making it. He does dark-teen like no one else, this is Nicholson at 16! In my humble opinion this film is at the top of the teen-flick chart alongside Heathers.

Samantha Mathis makes an intriguing leading lady, she really gets her character spot on. Miss Mathis also provides one of the best sexual tension scenes ever in this genre. (it's all in the music)

A young Seth Green also makes an appearance that I am sure he would rather forget, his acting is fine it's how he looks thats the problem !!

This film is dark, funny and brutaly honest. If you are under 20 and still hate the world this will kill a couple of those boring 'too old to play to young to drink' hours.

Highly recommended.

What a film!!, this is a film that very accurately represents how it feels to be unpopular, or the new kid in high school. Slater gained much respect from me for his terrific performance is Hard Harry, a new kid at a school where the staff don't seem to care about the students, Harry runs a pirate radio station as an anonymous student at the high school, and shares his feelings about the school, he gains a large following of students who feel the same way he does, but then trouble starts. This is a truly great film, with great performances, this is probably the "Rebel Without A Cause", for our generation. ***1/2 out of ****.

For me, it's one of the movies I saw once nearly 30 years ago and yet I well remember heaps of scenes and details and even facial expressions of minor characters.

It's a good movie and the soundtrack is extremely good.

Not much happens here, so there's little to spoil. Which completely fits the theme of the movie. Full throttle Gen X angst, apathy, boredom. Few non Gen X'ers will get much out of this movie. And if asked by Boomers or Millenials, Gen X will try for 30 seconds to explain it, realize it's impossible and give up. Oh well, whatever, never mind.

There is one significant flaw (IMHO) and that's Slater's father and one of the school personnel look extremely similar, making some of the scenes confusing.

When "Pump Up The Volume" came out in 1990, I wanted to BE Christian Slater. Now that it's already been twelve years since it was released, I still can't believe how well it's held up. Aside from a couple of things that make it dated (I'm referring mainly to the opening credit sequence and the way some of the characters dress...mulletts WERE acceptable back then), the message remains the same and I think that's what has made this movie stand the test of time. Along with "Heathers", this is some of Christian Slater's best work ever. His performance alone is enough to reccommend this one, but that combined with the message, make it a cult classic. They don't make movies like this anymore.