Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Pump Up the Volume (1990)

Director: Allan Moyle

Average user rating
1 review

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

By night, shy student Mark Hunter (Slater), resentful because his family has moved from New York to an Arizona backwater, retires to the basement to become pirate radio DJ Hard Harry, so named because he pretends to masturbate on air. Mixing outrage, Leonard Cohen and social commentary, his show becomes compulsory for the youngsters at Hubert Humphrey High School. They phone and write in with problems ranging from teen pregnancy to loneliness, but when one listener commits suicide, Hard Harry is charged with criminal solicitation. Now all they have to do is find him... Writer/director Moyle turns what could have been a wallow in teen angst into something altogether more forceful. The perfectly cast Slater effectively propels the film, his intensity and dry delivery giving it a definite edge, as does a soundtrack which includes Ice T, Concrete Blonde and the Cowboy Junkies.

Author: CM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

User reviews of this film

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Allan Moyle

Producer: Rupert Harvey, Sandor Stern

Cast: Christian Slater, Scott Paulin, Ellen Greene, Samantha Mathis, Anthony Lucero, Andy Romano, Annie Ross full cast

Duration: 102 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.