Christian Slater is an actor of great potential, though — as many critics have pointed out — he does tend to slip into a self-conscious Jack Nicholson impression from time to time. (The possiblity that Slater will one day play Nicholson's son seems inevitable.)
In the current "Young Guns II," Slater manages to put that acting tic on hold, but it surfaces once again in "Pump Up the Volume," the latest cinematic essay in teen angst.
"Pump Up the Volume" is a teenage version of "Talk Radio" that has aspirations of being this generation's "Rebel Without a Cause." Unfortunately, especially in the first half, it comes off more like "Porky's: The Ham Radio."
Slater is a painfully shy East Coast teen transplanted to a small Arizona town where he has become alienated and alone, unable to make even a single friend. But he does show off writing talent in an English class (taught by Ellen Greene, of "Little Shop of Horrors").
One night, while trying unsuccessfully to reach his friends with a ham radio, Slater finds he can hone in on local frequencies, and soon he's unmasking another side of his personality on the air, a much more aggressive, forceful one than he wears during the day.
To his surprise, Slater finds his fellow high school students are tuning to his ravings, which, in an extremely vulgar fashion, encourage masturbation, listening to "forbidden" music and acting crazy.
Using a machine to distort his voice, he gains a fervent following of local teens through his outrageous behavior, a constant stream of profanity and verbal attacks on adults and authority in every form.
Eventually he begins taking calls on the air, phoning teens who write him letters at an anonymous post office box, but he has second thoughts when he finds himself counseling a suicidal classmate.
Meanwhile, a girl (Samantha Mathis) in one of his classes, an aspiring poet who always wears black, begins to catch on to who this foul-mouthed, high school Larry King really is. So she takes steps to prove her theory.
Eventually, Slater begins a campaign against his corrupt high school principal (Annie Ross), which brings her wrath down on him. She calls in the FCC (headed by James Hampton) to track down his signal.
All of this builds to a most unlikely frenzy with, as my own teenage son noted, the requisite end-of-the-movie car chase.
Though writer-director Allan Moyle has some interesting ideas at work here, "Pump Up the Volume" is primarily the same old thing — "us," represented by adolescents of all shapes and sizes, against "them," meaning parents, teachers and any other handy authority figures.
Shifts in tone are frequent and far too stark, plot holes and implausibilities are gargantuan, and there are a number of inconsistencies. This is also a surprisingly exploitive film, from the sentimental cameo of the suicidal student to the scene where Mathis removes her blouse.
One of the traps just about every filmmaker who tries a coming-of-age picture falls into is exploiting the very audience he is seeking. Wouldn't it be nice to see a picture like this take the high road once in a while?
The most annoying aspect for me, however, was the lack of balance in the characters. Aside from Slater, everyone here is a stereotype. And except for Greene's sympathetic teacher, every adult is a villain, from the over-the-top "Mommie Dearest"-style principal to the cartoonish FCC executive to Slater's foppish father.
The only real reason to see this film is Slater's knockout performance. He's an amazing young talent — even if he does echo Nicholson — and it will be interesting to see what he comes up with when he's able to sink his teeth into a really good script.
"Pump Up the Volume" is rated R for considerable profanity and vulgarity, with partial nudity and some violence.