A great Christian Slater film.

jeffman52001

Pump Up the Volume really deals with the issues of being a teenager, I think this movie is as great as The Breakfast Club.

The movie starts out with Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) a.k.a. Hard Harry running a pirate radio show, he is listened to by the students of Hubert Humphery High School and by a teacher, Ms Emerson (Ellen Green of Talk Radio and Glory Glory). The school is being runned by a corrupt principal Loretta Creswood (Annie Ross of Superman III) who weeds out kids who she thinks are losers. Harry becomes a reluctant hero to all the students in the school, he has some raunchy moments on his radio show but he reaches in the humanity of all who listen. A girl in his class,Nora Diniro(Samantha Mathis)learns who Hard Harry is, but won't tell anyone. Mark is so unhappy with moving out to Arizona, His father, Brian Hunter (Scott Paulin)who runs the school district and mother, Marla Hunter (Mimi Kennedy of Dahrma and Greg) try to help him but only push him away, Mark has some inner demons he has a hard time dealing with, one of his callers, Malcolm Kaiser wants to commit suicide and Harry does little to talk him out of it. Harry feels bad that he doesn't do anything to help him, he says somethings about being a teenager and also suicide, he made some real good points their. Harry falls for Nora, he opens up to her. Later on, the FCC are called in to find Hard Harry. Miss Creswood is later exposed and is suspended by Brian Hunter after finding out about her shady ways, thanks to Ms. Emerson. Harry tells his listeners to not to give up and live, he is nabbed and taken away.

I feel that this movie really touched on some issues on being a teen and being to speak your thoughts. The cast really did a wonderful job, the supporting cast, Andy Romano (Admiral Bates of Under Siege 1 and 2) as Mr. Murdock, Cheryl Pollack as Paige Woodward, James Hampton (Teen Wolf 1 and 2 and Sling Blade) as Arthur Watts of the FCC. I give this movie 2 thumbs up and 10/10 stars.

score 10/10

jeffman52001 5 July 2004

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0287173/