Greatness—Out of Reach

I can almost feel tears welling up in my eyes at the last scene of What We Do Is Secret, the new biopic about 1970s Los Angeles punk band The Germs. The band’s visionary frontman is disintegrating on camera, dying of an intentional heroin overdose, while the incredulous guitar player watches mourning fans circling the body of a fallen rock star on television.

Then I realize, it’s the Bowie that’s getting to me. David Bowie’s “Five Years” is playing in the background and steadily growing louder. The dead rock star on TV? It’s John Lennon. In this final scene, the near-simultaneous deaths of Lennon and the frontman of the Germs have been combined into one epic, tear-jerking montage. To compare any musician to John Lennon is certainly grandiose, and I take object. Here, just thinking of his death has almost made me cry for Darby Crash.

What We Do Is Secret is part mockumentary, part tribute, and part teen movie. For evidence of the third influence, look no further than the male lead: Darby Crash is portrayed by Shane West of A Walk to Remember fame. Though entertaining, the movie has no claim to greatness of any sort. I’m not so sure the band does either, but the creators of the film undoubtedly disagree with me on that count. Their whole purpose seems to be to tell the world of Darby Crash’s greatness. He is, to them, a heroic figure.

Darby Crash is not the main attraction of the film. Though he’s an interesting (if inconsistent) character, his pseudo-philosophical voice-overs distract from the drive of the narrative and, indeed, the momentum of the band. The recreated concert footage (lots of it!) is easily the most appealing part of What We Do Is Secret. It has an air of real authenticity to it, as if the audience has been allowed to camp out in smoky Los Angeles punk clubs 30 years ago. The self-destructive, and downright destructive, actions of the band members that cause them to be banned from nearly every venue in the city seem tragically real.

The heroin may be the film’s downfall, as well as that of the band. The initiation of the drug is shown in a few beautiful scenes, providing a transition in the characters’ lives no less awkward or significant than their first sexual encounter. But there are a few too many scenes with heroin for comfort; the audience visibly squirms at each close-up of a needle entering a vein.

Perhaps we are meant to squirm. Perhaps we are meant to see that these few teenagers in Los Angeles had a chance to do something great, to transcend the norms of music and rock bands, but they screwed it up. Like all the saddest and most common stories, they fell for drugs and destruction and let that chance at greatness slip out of reach.