I made it through Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, I made it through Larry Clark’s Kids. Man, I even made it through Gummo (by Harmony Korine, writer of Kids). Not that these were bad films, I actually liked all of them; they are just hard to watch more than once. The characters are so unpleasant, why even waste your time spending another evening with them. American Punks was trying very hard to follow in the footsteps of the aforementioned movies, but fell far short of being anything noteworthy. The acting is so bad, that the actors are just as unlikable as the people they are trying to portray.

Revenge seems to be the plot, but our main character Bobby Tilton (Mike Passion) can’t even seem to pull that off. He is a loser, his buddy is killed by a local drug dealer, he then goes unsuccessfully revenge crazy, and his whole life sucks – basic terms for a basic plot. And if it couldn’t get any worse, our thug is named Chachi. That name is sacred to those of us who grew up on Scott Baio in the 1970’s & 80’s (of Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi fame, for the youngins out there), and it should be retired like an old football jersey. On the DVD packaging, there are comments comparing American Punks to Slacker - please!

Have you ever watched a movie that found you questioning yourself about why you were even watching it in the first place? And for some crazy reason, after you mentally asked yourself why, you find that you are still sitting on the couch watching it? Well, due to my commitment to reviewing films for Killerfilm.com, it is my job to sit through the occasional bad apple – and what a bad one American Punks was. There are healthy doses of bad acting, poor cinematography, and dismal storytelling; so if that is your thing, please enjoy.

It would be unfair for me to give this the worst film award for 2008, since we are barely into the year, and that it was actually released in 1997- but I could give it after the fact, can’t I?