Punk The Vote

For a film that features a political candidate who shoves a Canadian flag up his ass, Punk The Vote is a surprisingly inoffensive affair. In fact, it's only really insulting on an aesthetic level.

A well-meaning film that starts out about Starbuck, a punk who decides to run in the most recent federal election, it quickly turns into an unfocused mess as director and also-punk Eric Roach Denis decides to get in on the action and join the race. While Starbuck envisions a campaign filled with over-the-top stunts designed to draw attention to the absurdity of the current Canadian political process, Roach wants to pursue a more serious course and tackle issues such as homelessness and proportional representation. The growing conflict between these two visions makes the film as dissonant as the eroding relationship between the punks themselves. As Roach begins to receive more attention from the media, he becomes less concerned with Starbuck's antics and the film drifts away from its original vision, morphing into a rather narcissistic portrait of a punk turned politician. To his credit, Roach is at least self-aware about his addiction to attention, but that still isn't enough to make this film informative, enlightening or entertaining.