Pump Up the Volume

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.

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.

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.

Christian Slater plays Mark Hunter, a disaffected teen that secretly runs a pirate radio station, which in the early nineties was a big deal. He does this for mostly therapeutic reasons, but soon gains a rabid fan base among his fellow high school students. Soon he begins to realize that his words are having an impact and when one student calls in for help and finding none takes their own life, things become very real for Mark. Nora Diniro, played by the underrated Samantha Mathis, figures out Mark is the voice behind the radio persona, and helps Mark as he tries to elude the FCC and get a final message out.

This movie came out my senior year in high school, and I connected with it. A lot of the themes this film touched upon were very close to me, so it has long been a favorite of mine. For any teen going through the growing pains associated with that age, I urge them to watch this movie.

I first saw this film around 1996, when I was 13 and just going into that 'I hate the world and everything about it' phase that most teenagers go through. I fell in love with it there and then and over the years I've owned 5 separate copies.

Not just because of the unbelievably brilliant soundtrack, not just because of the real and relate-able characters, not just because of the engaging and original plot, but because I still feel now, what I first felt when I saw the film. Sometimes everyone feels that they're alone and it takes another voice, one coming from a someone you might not even ever have met reminding you that everyone feels that crushing loneliness and only you can change that.

Even now that I'm nearing my mid-twenties and every time I watch this film I want to 'Rise up in the cafeteria' and 'stab my teachers with a plastic fork.' Being a teenager sucks, its probably the most free time of your life, but everything from parents, to homework, to hormones prevents most from truly enjoying the experience.

I want every teenager to watch this film, I want every person who looks back on their teen years with regret to watch this film, I want every person who's forgotten what its like to be a teenager to watch this film. I think there's room in just about everyone's heart for it.