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What We Do Is Secret

What We Do Is Secret (2007)

tomatometer

43

Average Rating: 5.2/10
Reviews Counted: 47
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 27

Despite its dynamic subject and reckless anti-glamor, this biopic about the legendary punk rocker Darby Crash fails to translate the excitement its subject generated.

53

Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 8

Despite its dynamic subject and reckless anti-glamor, this biopic about the legendary punk rocker Darby Crash fails to translate the excitement its subject generated.

audience

54

liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 7,786

My Rating

Movie Info

The true-life story of Darby Crash, who became a Los Angeles punk icon before taking his own life in 1980, provides the background for this gritty musical biopic. Not long after getting kicked out of an experimental high school in Los Angeles, charismatic misfit and major David Bowie fan Jan Paul Beahm (Shane West) announces that he wants to form a rock band. With his best friend Georg Ruthenberg (Rick Gonzalez), Beahm creates a group called the Germs, mainly because their first choice,

R, 1 hr. 32 min.

Drama

Nov 4, 2008

Vision Films

Cast

All Critics (49) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (20) | Rotten (28) | DVD (2)

Some of the supporting performances, like those of Phillips and Gonzalez, are very strong, but it's West who lifts the entire film to a whole other level.

August 29, 2008 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Despite a terrific performance from Shane West, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Crash, Secret is a chronology, not a biopic.

August 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | Comment
Philadelphia Inquirer
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First-time writer-director Rodger Grossman bangs out a visceral, energized biopic that captures the vibrant idiocy of punked-out youth and a tortured soul gaining his wish of cult status.

August 22, 2008 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A labor of love for writer-director Rodger Grossman, this entertaining if superficial biopic chronicles the rise and fall of LA punk pioneers the Germs.

August 21, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Where What We Do Is Secret succeeds is in the performances which (and this a compliment, I think) sometimes expose a stilted, amateurish strain that's oddly in tune with the characters' D.I.Y. aesthetic.

August 15, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The best parts of Secret recall Sid and Nancy. The worst evoke the last, inferior A Star Is Born.

August 15, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comment
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Long live the baby monsters.

August 15, 2011 Full Review Source: East Bay Express | Comment
East Bay Express

A docudrama with the production qualities of a made-for-MTV movie about a band that recorded one album and never finished a gig and whose lead singer was a fascist poseur.

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington Times | Comment

In sure hands, What We Do Is Secret could have been a fine rock'n'roll biopic.

November 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

West is magnetic trying to fill the gaps in the pop psychology insight into how the Germs' brief candle burned out so fast, with performances, "interviews" and flashbacks.

November 1, 2008 Full Review Source: Film-Forward.com | Comment
Film-Forward.com

The hyperactive emotional landscape begs for psychological insights and cultural revelations that were tied to that historical musical moment.

October 31, 2008 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Despite its thorough attention to historical detail and the obvious love of all involved for their shattered subject, What We Do Is Secret is, in the end, awfully sterile for a movie about the Germs.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | Comment
Austin Chronicle

While What We Do Is Secret may not be remembered for much more than West's performance, it's an impersonation worth saluting.

October 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Seattle Times | Comment
Seattle Times

The final scenes of Secret are its best and, ironically, the original Germs' final moments were said to be their best, too.

September 26, 2008 Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | Comment
St. Paul Pioneer Press

The battering live shows prove West's dedication to the role, but as always there's too little insight into both music and musicians and too much period design

September 12, 2008 Full Review Source: I.E. Weekly | Comment
I.E. Weekly

The faux interview preserves Darby Crash's self-image, the reenactment in What We Do Is Secret remembers the preservation.

September 12, 2008 Full Review Source: PopMatters | Comment
PopMatters

Grossman's movie never delves much below the surface.

September 4, 2008 Full Review Source: Windy City Times | Comment (1)
Windy City Times

It's a shame to see such vibrant material treated in such a routine, nostalgic manner, but the energy of the material and especially of the Germs music occasionally rescues the movie from its unimpressive, superficial stretches.

August 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

High School Musical with needles and dye jobs.

August 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Let's Not Listen | Comment
Let's Not Listen
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for What We Do Is Secret

For someone who's never even heard of The Germs, I thought it was fairly good.

November 22, 2008
lovablemisanthrope

Super Reviewer

I gave this a re-watch recently and can report that it holds up pretty well.I've never been familiar with the background of The Germs, Darby Crash, or even much of their music, but I really enjoyed this film. The style of storytelling is really effective, told in asides to the audience that fleshes out whatever scenes

September 14, 2009

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