Aggressive, incoherent, and nakedly exploitative, Dubeat-E-O is possibly the purest punk film ever made. It's cheap, noisy, abrasive, confrontational, politically naïve, and full of in-jokes and scenesters (in this instance, Hollywood hardcore types circa 1980), fitting nearly any criteria one might choose. Crudely self-aware, the film's triple-tiered structure of Joan Jett footage, Ray Sharkey exposition, and Alan Sacks deconstruction will leave most viewers in the dust. Director Alan Sacks overdubs a running commentary to explain the troubled history of the film as it unspools. Fifteen years later, DVD technology made this technique commonplace, but with Dubeat-E-O it's a permanent part of the soundtrack, impossible to silence. Sacks is joined by a gaggle of drinking buddies who add their own witless barbs to the session and listen to his endless anecdotes, but the resulting cacophony of music, dialogue, and drunk talk renders each thread impossible to follow. Brief scenes of an ersatz Runaways performance before an audience of polite extras prove that the project was cheap from the very start, and the connective tissue that holds it all together is blatantly self-referential. Sharkey bounces around the editing room in nervous, sweaty fits that resemble a cocaine jag -- all nervous, aimless energy that goes nowhere. Meanwhile, an obviously inebriated Sacks blathers on about getting more vodka and hiding weed on the car ride home from the studio. Visually, Sacks makes the most of this train wreck with disorienting photo collages of religious icons, pornographic poses, and the occasional dead rat, making for some evocative eye candy. He resorts to Polaroids to simulate scenes that hadn't been shot when the budget ran out, and includes a great number of privately snapped pics, capturing a variety of the director's nightclubbing friends in the throes of punk rock debauchery. Anyone hoping to enjoy some ultra-rare Joan Jett performances will find them chopped up and strewn haphazardly throughout 85 minutes of bad acting and superfluous babble. Dubeat-E-O's only reward is a unique display of sheer egoism that is too shrill to be enjoyable, but can never be forgotten.
by Fred Beldin
review
