Country:
USA
Starring:
GG Allin
Merle Allin
Dee Dee Ramone
Geraldo Rivera
Directed By:
Todd Phillips
I have no problem with people who live their lives, from the cradle to the grave, without ever knowing who GG Allin is. He is everything but necessary to your existence. That doesn't mean he's not interesting, though. He was the reason why your grandmother locked her doors at night, in the eighties. A punk rocker so extreme and nihilistic, there's nothing he wouldn't do. His live performances were akin to being in hell for an hour or so. He'd perform naked, defecate on stage (and sometimes eat it), harm himself, ostracize and fight his audience. His music was rather primitive, but he left his boot print on rock n' roll through his anger and his contempt for everything and everybody. What better subject for a documentary, right? That's what director of HATED Todd Phillips (of the later Hangover legacy) told himself. Like Allin's music, it's short, brutal and to the point. It also has the distinctive feat of treating GG Allin with respect and shed a light on how bizarre and intriguing the man was.
It's hard to imagine someone so extreme ever went to school. The seducing thought would be that he's grown in a cave and was bread to hate humanity by a misanthropic, evil single parent. Todd Phillips goes back to GG's hometown of Lancaster, New Hampshire and talks to his old friends and high school teachers. While it's interesting to see Allin's relationship to utter normality, Phillips commits a logical fallacy by omitting his family history and yet showing interviews with his brother and fellow band member Merle, who despite not being as crazy as GG, still sports a Hitler mustache. In fact, the Allin brothers were raised by parents who had a strong history of mental problems. It tainted their upbringing and to say it steered them towards non-conformism would be an understatement. Still, it's quite something to see GG's old school band teacher react to hearing his music. The feeling of failure on his face was priceless. If there's a legacy to GG Allin's life, it's to make people wonder why someone like him could exist. It's easy to brush him off as crazy, but when you knew him and tried to teach him things, the boundaries aren't so clear anymore. The very sight of GG's school band teacher is the best possible way to humanize such a troubled icon figure.
If Todd Phillips doesn't dwell on GG Allin's childhood, it's because he has a plan in mind. He focuses on his musical career and finding out about his nihilistic persona. There are interviews with him, bandmates who believe in what he does and old bandmates who don't. There is also footage of his shows and spoken word performances who really speak for themselves. You have to be a special type of person for performing butt naked, eating your own feces and fight with several people within the same hour. The portrait Todd Phillips draws of Allin doesn't stray too far from the legend. He wasn't a man who hated everyone, as much as a man who didn't care about anything. He did whatever he wanted, when he wanted, no matter what the cost would be. Life broke him many times, but he somehow pieced himself back up and kept working at being that rock n' roll demon. His story is a story of simple-minded success, in a way.
I'm still not sure what to make of GG Allin, after watching HATED, but I now know he's one of the most interesting person I'm happy I'll never meet. His short life (he died of an heroin overdose before the movie was release) served its purpose by giving art new benchmarks in violence and depravity. In many ways, GG Allin's life resemble those of other punk rockers. He didn't have much money or possessions and lived to perform and tour. Where he stood out was by his burning, absolute will to live by his ideals of nihilism. When GG Allin sang "Bite It, You Scum" you felt offened, because it aimed at you and everything you believe in and he sang it with so much conviction, he made you feel like scum a little bit. Playing his music for other people felt (and still feels) like a genuine aggression too. No musician scarred the well-thinking like GG did. Not even Marylin Manson. One might've looked like your worst nightmare, but the other was everything you never wanted your child to be. Todd Phillips' documentary is an appropriate tribute to a very peculiar man.
SCORE: 77%