Punk's Not Dead is a vintage collage that takes you into the sweaty underground clubs, backyard parties, recording studios and stadium shows where the punk rock culture continues to thrive.
The film features an abundance of interviews, performances from the Circle Jerks and Offspring, and behind-the-scenes excursions with the bands, their labels, the fans and press who keep punk music alive. Director Susan Dynner brilliantly displays 30 years worth of punk and the national phenomenon it caused.
Punk's Not Dead successfully avoids giving a musical history lesson and gets directly to the point of how punk is still practiced and preached today. The film is quite forward-looking and acts as a social-history document. It compares the thoughts of pioneers who used punk music to speak out against religion, politics and corporate conglomerates to the conception of punk's young fans and musicians who operate in an environment where chain stores sell pre-torn clothing and punk rock tours are run by corporate sponsors.
Although somewhat slow-moving in the beginning, the film gets progressively more interesting as Dynner meshes the past with the present. It depicts that even though bands such as Nirvana, My Chemical Romance, Sum 41 and Good Charlotte know how to perform for maximum profit, they still have a firm sense of controversy just like the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and the Ramones.
