"It" turns out to be an unethical principal who expels students with low test scores from Hubert Humphrey High. Like Peter Finch in "Network," he is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. But mostly he urges the "Why Bother Generation" to get involved. Hard Harry's witty improvisations, his masturbatory interludes, his obscene call to arms win a devoted and ever-growing audience of the "misunderstood." Engulfed by loneliness himself, he offers his peers understanding and unorthodox advice on everything from gay gang rape to teenage suicide. He pours out his soul and plays his favorite tunes ("Wave of Mutilation," "Titanium Expose'"), unaware that his nightly broadcasts are turning him into a cult hero. By night he turns megahertz hacker, breaking into the airwaves via a homemade ham radio console. Slater, the sly delinquent of "Heathers," is now the brazen Hard Harry, a k a Mark Hunter, a shy New Yorker who has recently moved with his sellout parents to Paradise Valley, Ariz.īy day he is a mild-mannered, miserable student at Hubert Humphrey High, afraid to speak to girls, friendless, embarrassed by his sensitivity and writing skills. In this teen tour de force, he almost has a one-man show. But then that comes with the turf, that juicy land of save-the-world dreams, glandular insatiability and lots of rock-and-roll.Ĭhristian Slater, the Brando du jour, brings plenty of cynicism, swagger and smarts to his starring role. There's nothing new about that, of course, except for the progeny who are freaking out - "the Why-Bother Generation of the Totally Exhausted Decade." Aimed unerringly at its audience, this heartfelt drama is as nasty as it wants to be, and as melodramatically overwrought. An angst-powered teen anthem, "Pump Up the Volume" revels ecstatically in the woes of growing up alienated, frustrated and sexually obsessed.
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